


Shifted

by gotham_ruaidh



Series: Gotham's non-"Imagine" writings [2]
Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2018-07-24 06:07:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 53
Words: 58,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7496913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gotham_ruaidh/pseuds/gotham_ruaidh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Claire had gotten pregnant with Brianna a month or two earlier in the story, and she and Jamie had re-evaluated their priorities and decided that the cause was lost, and they were able to slip away from the army and quietly return to Lallybroch?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](http://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/147287240956/shifted-part-1-chapter-1)

_**Part 1: The Beginning** _

**Chapter 1**

**Lallybroch, October 1746**

\-----

At first it came in waves – like the tiny laps she’d felt against her ankles when walking sandy shorelines as a child. It seemed completely manageable, and she truly wondered what all the fuss was about.

But as the hours continued to pass, and the long shadows of the afternoon gradually slipped into darkness, the waves subsided – replaced by a constant thudding pull that did not relent, did not yield for even the slightest moment.

Pain sharpened her senses. Claire shivered as a tendril of cold October air licked her bare shoulder. Doubling up against the cold, and overcome with the sudden scent of her own exertions, she opened her mouth, gasping for fresh breath.

Her head turned so that only one ear faced the room, straining to make out the words murmured at the foot of the bed –

“…been eight hours now wi’ barely a change. We need to do something afore she canna help us to do it.”

“Aye, I know, but I’ve seen this go on for up to a day and even more. We need to let this run its course.”

An audible sigh. “Ah weel. I don’t disagree with ye. But we need to get her to eat, or to drink something. She canna go for much longer as it is.”

“Stop,” Claire rasped. “Stop talking about me as if I’m not here.” She opened her eyes and blearily focused on the shorter figure at the foot of the bed. “I’m a physician. I can diagnose my own problems.”

“Oh, aye.” Jenny approached Claire, skeptically surveying her bare, twisted, sweat-soaked limbs. “If ye take nothing else away from this experience, sister, I hope it’s the fact that when it comes to bringing bairns into this world, everything ye thought ye knew about your own body proves to be false.”

“Is this you trying to cheer me up? You know I couldn’t keep anything down a few hours ago. Why should anything have changed by now?” Claire swallowed against the dryness tugging at the back of her throat.

Jenny smirked – but Claire saw concern etched in the creases of her eyes.

“A few hours? May as well be a lifetime ago, Claire. Your body has been working non-stop. Ye need to eat something, or at least try for water. To keep the blood flowing.”

“I won’t. I don’t want it to come back up again. Just the thought of it makes me sick.”

“I swear, you’re as stubborn as my pig-heided brother. God knows how much longer this will last, Claire – you need to be able to see this through to the end.”

“No.”

“Yes.” This time Jenny braced her hand on the headboard and leaned over Claire, trying her level best to establish eye contact.

Claire shut her eyes, overcome by a fresh wave. Her mouth opened in a silent scream, body tensed. She pushed back against the arm wrapped around her middle, her only anchor as sensation overpowered her.

“For God’s sake, Claire,” Jamie murmured in her ear, face obscured by the riotous mess of curls he normally loved to sink his fingers into. “For once in your life, woman, do as you’re told. Eat something.”

The sheer terror in Jamie’s voice forced her focus away from pure sensation and toward the immediacy of the moment – and the man wedged between her back and the headboard.

“All right.” Sighing, she laid her right hand over Jamie’s at her middle, threading their fingers together and running her thumb over his own. She had meant it as reassurance, but he just gripped her even tighter. “What do you suggest, then?”


	2. Chapter 2

_**Part 1: The Beginning** _

Chapter 2

* * *

“I want you in the room with me.”

 

It was late, and the candle on Jamie’s side table cast a soft glow on his skin, exposed to the chilly September air of the bedroom.

 

Brow furrowed, his left hand paused over her bare belly - palm on her navel, fingers extended wide over the still-growing swell. Claire recalled the early days of her pregnancy – those dark days immediately after Culloden - when he could cup her entire stomach within the span between pinky and thumb. Amazing, really, how something so small had brought them so much joy.

 

“During the birth, ye mean?”

 

“Before the birth, during it, and after the baby is born. Every step of the way.”

 

His thumb swept gently over her sensitive skin, lazily back and forth. He shifted his face closer to hers on their shared pillow.

 

“Whatever ye ask of me, Claire, I’ll do it. I willna leave ye alone. Not after…” he swallowed.

 

The same lump echoed in Claire’s throat, as it always did when she thought of that terrible time in Paris when they’d lost each other. Half-blind in the dim light, she laid the fingers of her right hand on his lips. No need to say any more.

 

“I know. I never expected to be alone in this, Jamie.”

 

Left hand still on her belly, his right hand took hers at his lips, folding over her fingers and gently kissing her ring. His ring. Her only ring.

 

Five months past Culloden now, and the English patrols had stepped up their visits to Highland homesteads. They were always hungry for food that the houses could not spare – and for any goods of value, within the houses or on their occupants. A ring of gold would bring unwanted attention – a ring of iron had no value to them.

 

But it did to Jamie.

 

It minded him of everything that had brought them to this point. Their joy at discovering the pregnancy in late February had put matters into perspective. Highland politics being as it was – together with the Bonnie Prince’s vacillating attitudes – he and Claire came to the difficult conclusion that their efforts would not yield true fruit. Their grand ambition to change the course of history would not be realized.

 

But there were things Jamie could change. Wife, child, and family were always more important – free Scotland or no. Better to quietly take Claire and the Lallybroch men home, lay low on the estate, and prepare for the hard times they knew would follow.

 

So over the course of two sleepless, antagonizing weeks, Jamie slowly extracted himself from his position among the united clans – just as the chiefs were committing their men to the final battle. He had gambled that amid the confusion, twenty Fraser crofters would not be missed – and, thank God, he’d been right.

 

Still, after all their work to figure out just exactly how to get away – all the late nights where they’d spent hours going over the scenarios, one of Jamie’s big hands cupping Claire’s still-flat stomach while the other traced her features, drawing strength from her nearness – he’d tried to send her away, back through the stones.

 

Murtagh rode ahead with the Lallybroch men, leaving Jamie and Claire to return at their own pace. Claire had had no sense of the direction they’d take home – and Jamie had had no intention of telling her. But as soon as they crested a hill and came within distance of the standing stones, Claire whirled to face him.

 

“What do you think you’re doing?” she’d hissed, eyes narrow.

 

He pulled on the reins to stop the horse. “Keeping you safe, _a graidh_.”

 

The shock on her face had almost physically pained him. “Are you joking? Do you really think I’d let you do that, James Fraser?”

 

“ _Let_ me?”

 

“No power on earth can keep me from you. Haven’t we proven that?”

 

The corner of his mouth had lifted. “Aye, but I’m no quite sure that the power of yon stones is one from this earth.”

 

Turning fully in the saddle to face him, she’d slipped her arms around his shoulders, under the shelter of his plaid. Slowly he bent his neck so that their foreheads touched.

 

“I’m staying put. With you. I don’t care how hard it will be. Living without you for the rest of my life would be harder.”

 

He’d swallowed and closed his eyes. “He can provide for you and the bairn – there – better than I can now. Better than I may be able to for a good many years yet.” One hand held tight to the reins, the other gently cupped her belly. “Food. Peace. Safety. Stability. If half of what ye’ve said about what’s to come is true, Sassenach, I canna promise you any of those things. And I willna let my child grow up without them.”

 

Without warning Claire anchored her fingers in the hair at his nape, pulled him to her mouth, and kissed him hard. In reflex he reciprocated, desperately. He wanted, needed to keep her safe. But he also wanted and needed her with him, always. Speaking those words, admitting his inadequacies, had cracked his heart wide open.

 

Suddenly she pulled away. His mouth chased hers – should it be one of the last kisses they would ever share - but she pulled back too quickly.

 

“We’ll find a way. We always do. And you can provide so many things he couldn’t.”

 

Jamie licked his lips, eyes focused intently on Claire’s. “No, _a nighean_. I can’t.”

 

Her hand slid to cup his cheek. “Yes, you can. Love. Commitment. Loyalty.” She paused, thumb caressing his cheek. “Passion.”

 

He swallowed, heart in his throat at the thought – even fleeting – of her in another man’s bed. But for the child – for the promise of his blood – he had to think on such things. And it absolutely killed him.

 

“Claire – ”

 

“He can’t provide that. Any of those things. He wouldn’t.”

 

The horse shifted under them.

 

Despite himself, Jamie’s face leaned in to Claire’s caresses.

 

“That’s no enough to raise a bairn on, and ye ken it well. No enough to keep you here with an outlaw husband.”

 

“We won’t be alone in this, Jamie. What about Jenny? Ian? All the men? We’re just two mouths among many.”

 

The hand on her belly tensed. “No ye’re not. Ye’re _my_ wife. _My_ child. It’s my duty to keep ye safe, and fed, and looked after. And I canna do it myself. Not in the way you both deserve.” God, was this what it felt like to rip your heart in two?

 

Claire placed her hand atop his over her belly.

 

“I will not tear out my heart, Jamie.” Her voice was quiet, furious, determined. “You can’t ask me to do that. Not after everything we’ve gone through.”

 

Her eyes, defiant, challenged his. His eyes – so wide, so blue, so expressive – swam with moisture. Their gazes locked for a lingering moment – and the tension broke. Overcome, he trailed the back of one hand down her cheek.

 

“Oh, Lord, ye’ve given me a rare woman,” he whispered, voice suddenly hoarse. Grabbing her right hand, he’d kissed her iron ring hard, and folded their hands over his heart.

 

Her face had split into a smile.

 

So they’d ridden back to Lallybroch, arriving a day behind Murtagh and the crofters. They’d used the four weeks before Culloden to prepare. Finish with the spring planting. Hunt as much meat as could be found and dry as many wild plants and herbs as could be gathered. Mend clothes and farm tools. Gather books and medicines.

 

And remove any and all items of value from the farmhouse – including Claire’s gold ring. “If need be, we could sell it for the gold,” she’d told Jamie as they settled in for sleep on a late March evening. “I’d rather it feed the family. It’s of no use to me now.”

 

Jamie was preoccupied with watching the tip of his forefinger trace the slight concavity of her stomach, directly below her navel. “Ye’re sure ye don’t mind, Sassenach? I feel as if I’ve taken you from him – but I don’t want to take him from you.”

 

He’d felt her sigh. “I’ve chosen you twice now, Jamie. I don’t need it. I don’t need the reminder of him.”

 

“Three times.”

 

“What?”

 

He lifted his gaze from her belly. “Three times you’ve chosen me, _a nighean_. Don’t forget when we wed.”

 

She snorted. “Well I did choose you – but I didn’t, at that time.” Pursing her lips, she glared at him. “You know what I mean.”

 

“I did.”

 

“Did what?”

 

“Choose you at our wedding.”

 

“Of course you did,” she retorted. “Once you Frasers make your mind up about anything, there’s always hell to pay.”

 

“Ye’re a Fraser too – have been for going on three years now. And as for hell to pay –” he rolled so that she sat in his lap above him, thighs on either side of his hips. Gazing up at her from the soft feather pillow, he snaked a long-fingered hand through the open front of her shift.

 

“I’ve made my mind up that I want to take ye. Now.” He rolled his hips slightly to emphasize the point. “Care to stop me?”

 

She’d smiled and, in one motion, ripped the shift up over her head. Her right hand rested atop his, caressing her breast.

 

“I choose you, Jamie,” she’d whispered. “I will always choose you.”

 

Jamie smiled at the sudden memory of Claire floating above him, naked, repeating those words as she took him within her again and again.

 

He blinked – returning to the present moment. Claire. Always Claire.

 

“It joys me that you won’t have to bear the bairn alone, Sassenach,” he whispered in the darkness, kissing her brow. “But truly, what can I do except watch?”

 

She withdrew her hand from his grasp. Resting her fingers on his back, her knuckles traced the web of his scars as her legs tangled with his beneath the sheets. Slowly she nuzzled her nose against his. Safe.

 

“I need you to make sure the midwife has clean hands, and that she keeps them clean. With hot water and alcohol.”

 

Clearly he had not been expecting this. “Oh, aye? Is that to protect against the gerrms?”

 

She couldn’t help but smile. “Yes. And you must make sure that the cloths she uses have been boiled, and that she uses different water to clean the baby once it’s born.”

 

“How should I expect the midwife to listen to me, Sassenach? She’ll be put off enough that I’m in the room with ye.”

 

“I don’t bloody care. I’ll be counting on you, Jamie. I can’t get an infection. The baby can’t get an infection.”

 

She paused, steeling herself against the next words.

 

“If it goes badly, Jamie – if it takes too long, or I start to really bleed – I need you to promise me you’ll choose the baby. Choose to save the baby.”

 

Jamie bolted up straight in bed. “No, Claire. No. I canna do that. I willna do that.”

 

“You must. If it comes to it – you must.”

 

“ _No_ , Claire.” His breath came short. “Just the thought of it curdles my wame. I – I canna...” Fumbling in the darkness, his hand found hers, twining their fingers together above her swollen belly.

 

“Ye said to me – at the stones – that I couldna ask you to tear your heart out. Dinna ask the same of me, now, _mo chridhe_. You are my priority. We can always have another bairn. But I’ve the one life, Claire – and that’s you.”

 

A sharp jab pushed against Claire’s palm.

 

“Jamie –”

 

“Sassenach. You have given me life – and given us new life. Ye’ve withstood trials and tests before – this will be no different. I’ll be with ye, I’ll mind what you say, and once I hold you and the bairn in my arms we’ll know all this worry was for naught.”

 

Slowly he slipped his fingers from Claire’s to rest flat on her bare belly, tracing the child’s movements as it continued to push outward.

 

“Soon, _a chiusle_ ,” he said softly. “Soon. Let your mother keep you safe to herself for just a while longer. We’ll have all the time in the world to get acquainted once you arrive.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> originally posted [on tumblr](http://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/147995500000/shifted-part-1-chapter-3)

_**Part 1: The Beginning** _

Chapter 3

* * *

Claire gasped and opened her eyes as the latest contraction finally relented.

“Jamie?”

He shifted behind her, bringing her back closer to his front.

“Aye, Sassenach? More to eat?” He moved to grab the half-eaten bowl of parritch and milk from the side table.

“No, just water. I don’t know why I’m so thirsty.”

Even with half her face buried in Jamie’s damp shirt, Claire could feel his eyes glaring at the top of her head. “Ye’ve been laboring for ten hours, _a nighean_. Ye’ve sweat through two shifts and my kilt all the way to the skin.”

“Ten hours? That’s not possible. The pains aren’t coming any closer than when this started.”

“Yer pains _are_ coming closer, Mistress Fraser, but still a few minutes apart,” the midwife observed from the foot of the bed. “Bairns just want to take their time, sometimes.”

Jamie pressed a cool mug of water to Claire’s lips. She slowly sipped but grimaced, burying her face deeper into Jamie’s shirt as a new, intense pain swept over her. He drew her closer and pressed a strong hand at the base of her spine. She cried out as it ended, keeping her eyes tightly shut.

“How much longer, do ye think?” she dimly heard Jamie ask the midwife.

The older woman wearily ran a well-worn hand across her eyes. “She’s a while to go yet. The hardest part is yet to come.”

* * *

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally posted [on tumblr](http://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/148346349257/shifted-part-1-chapter-4)

_**Part 1: The Beginning** _

Chapter 4

* * *

“Is it very different in your own time?”

Claire looked up from the paper-bound book she used to notate herbal receipts and some of the more interesting medical cases she’d seen since returning to Lallybroch. “Is what different?”

Jamie pushed aside a worn ledger. “Births. I mean, with all ye’ve shared about changes to make things easier, like the electric lights and getting stuck with needles to avoid sickness. I thought that perhaps birthing would be less…painful. Or less dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” She sat back in her chair, hands resting on her growing belly as she regarded Jamie from her side of the desk.

He closed his eyes, rubbed them with the backs of his hands, and sighed. “Do women still die in childbed?”

Pain bolted through Claire’s heart. “Yes. But not nearly as often.”

His eyes opened and fixed on a faded ink spot on the blotter. He was silent for a long while.

“It killed my father, for my mother to die.” His voice was so soft, she could barely hear. “I was old enough to see how much joy they’d had in each other, with the bairn on the way. And then it was – gone. She was gone. Thirteen hours she labored, Claire. My father-” He swallowed hard.

“Jamie-”

“She was screaming, Claire. Screaming for my father, because he wasna with her.” His eyes snapped up to hers, moisture threatening to spill over. “I know there wasna anything he could have done, ken. But she was alone, in her pains, for hours. They didna get to share those last hours together. I canna think-”

“Jamie, that won’t happen-”

“I put you in this situation. It’s on my heid if anything happens to you.” His voice rose. “I can protect you from the English, from the cold, from hunger. But I canna protect you from your own body.” He slammed his palm on the desk. “Do ye know how much it pains me to know that?”

Claire quietly stood, walked to Jamie’s side, and sat on the edge of the desk before him. Jamie blindly pressed his face into her belly, hands splayed over the rounded sides, breathing deeply. Her hands slowly kneaded his shoulders, feeling the tremors held tightly within.

“What brought this on, love? Why these feelings today?”

He took a moment to gather himself. “I was going through Ian’s ledger of rents. He keeps track of all the crofters’ families, and updates it each June – new bairns, old people that pass on, children that go off to other estates. He just finished making this year’s changes.” A deep sigh. “Do ye know how many Lallybroch women have died in childbed in the past five years, Sassenach?”

Claire didn’t answer – just twined her fingers deeply into Jamie’s hair.

“Three. All women I know. All women who had had bairns before. They werena expecting to die.”

“I don’t expect to die, either.”

He sat up straight, but kept his hands on her belly, thumbs lightly caressing. “I never asked all of what happened in Paris after ye – after ye lost Faith.” He swallowed. “I do know that it’s a miracle ye weren’t damaged on the inside, and that God blessed us with one more chance. But Claire –” His voice cracked. “Claire – I canna risk this again. I canna risk _you_ again. As much as I love you, and love this bairn – we canna have more. The risk is too great.”

Her hand tilted his face to meet hers.

“We don’t have to decide this now. We’ve got time, Jamie. I _want_ to give you more children. I _want_ us to have that in our lives.”

“Claire, it must be just the one. I swear to you I will love him and cherish him and teach him everything I know.”

“Or her.”

He gaped, thunderstruck. “ _A Dhia._ Her?” he croaked.

Claire cracked a tiny smile. “It’s just as likely to be a girl, Jamie. Or had you not thought of that?”

His mouth open and shut. Clearly he had no words. “I – girl – no. Claire, what would I ever do with a girl?”

“Idiot. The same you’d do with a boy.” She traced one finger across the seam of his lips.

Jamie’s face slowly yielded to a wide, giddy smile. “God help me if she’s anything like you, Sassenach.”

Claire sighed, grateful the moment had passed. “Are you joking? God help me if she’s anything like _you_.”

 

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Originally posted on tumblr](http://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/148687577936/shifted-part-1-chapter-5)

_**Part 1: The Beginning** _

Chapter 5

* * *

 

The pains were coming less than two minutes apart now. Jamie helped her stand and pace the room, bracing her each time a new pain came and went. She had long ago discarded her second, sweat-soaked shift – well beyond the point of caring about her nakedness.

Now she stood at the open window, peering out at the stars and enjoying the breeze. Jamie stood directly behind her, one strong hand at her back. “Better, _a nighean_?”

She sighed. “Much. I’m not quite as tired now.” She turned to face him, and he regarded her closely. Lines of exhaustion cut deep on her features, and her hair was plastered to her temples. But underneath this was a true sense of exhilaration – of a challenge met and mastered – of a tremendous accomplishment achieved. She had never been more beautiful to him.

“I feel – it’s coming to be time. I can’t believe we’re here, Jamie. Finally here.”

Overcome, he cupped her cheek and kissed her sweaty brow. “Neither can I, Sassenach. I’m here. I’m staying right here.”

“I do love you, Jamie. I love you with everything I am.”

Joy surged in his heart, bursting with love for this rare, strange woman.

And then his stomach crashed as he watched her beautiful eyes roll up in her head in a dead faint. Quickly he caught her and carried her back to the bed, bellowing for Jenny and the midwife and rousing the entire sleeping house.

“Claire! Dinna do this, Claire! Stay with me here!”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](http://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/149028542718/shifted-part-1-chapter-6)

_**Part 1: The Beginning** _

Chapter 6

* * *

 

Their third wedding anniversary fell on what Claire had estimated to be her due date.

Burrowing deeper into the thick wool blanket slung around her shoulders, Claire leaned back against the head of the chair. Jamie had been away with Ian minding a dispute between crofters about half a day’s ride out – and now that he’d returned, just in time for Mrs. Crook to serve supper, she felt the knot of tension that had sat at the pit of her stomach since he’d left slowly uncoil.

“Are ye well, Claire? Ye barely touched anything tonight.” Jenny pushed the half-eaten bowl of mashed potatoes toward her.

“No, I’m quite all right. I had such an appetite earlier – but now I seem to have run out of room to put it all.”

Jamie bent toward her from his seat at her left. Squeezing her thigh under the table, he pushed a few stray curls away from her earlobe. “Are ye truly full, Claire? Because-”

He pulled back sharply as Jenny thumped his left side. “I’ll no have talk like that at this table. Mind the bairns.”

At the head of the table, Murtagh paused from industriously consuming as many potatoes as he could. “Aye, Jamie. Mind the bairns.”

Jamie sheepishly regarded Young Jamie and Maggie seated on either side of their father, across the table from him. So excited to see their da home, they’d been given permission to eat with the adults – though they’d quickly grown bored with the novelty, Maggie ending up on Ian’s lap and Young Jamie getting up every two minutes to try to sit with his mam instead.

Ian smirked across the table, his kind eyes creasing. “I’ll let you know that Jamie was the same earlier, love. All he could talk about on the way back was how hungry he was and how much he’d like to eat when we got home, but now-”

Jenny’s eyes narrowed – though Maggie was drifting to sleep and Young Jamie preoccupied with building a mountain out of his mashed potatoes.

“Now _what_ , exactly?” Her voice was calm, but with an underlying note of threat.

Ian’s smirk became a grin. “Ach, weel, my dove – I was just going to say that I dinna think he was really talking about the taste of potatoes.”

Murtagh’s shoulders shook silently. Jamie snorted, feeling his sister’s fury begin to boil upwards.

“Ian, I swear –”

“Now now, love – watch that mouth. Mind the bairns, aye?”

Later, after Jamie had helped Claire up the stairs to their bedroom, stripped off her blanket and shift, removed the pins from her hair, unbuckled his kilt, pushed her to the bed, and buried his face in her breasts for a long while, she felt his shoulders tremble with laughter.

“What is it?”

He rolled to his side, facing her. “Shh. Listen.”

She stilled, ears piqued. At first nothing, then she heard it, faintly, through the wall behind their bed.

“Is that-”

“Aye, Sassenach. I’m not the only man glad to be back with his wife tonight.”

She smiled, reaching one thumb to trace the corner of his wide smiling mouth.

“Tonight? Or just any night?”

He tucked the bedclothes closer around her shoulders. “Are ye trying to ask me whether I’ve forgotten the date, Sassenach?”

She raised one eyebrow. “You hadn’t said anything before you left, and we didn’t speak much between when you got back and supper-”

“Why do ye think I wanted to get home to you today? Of course I haven’t forgotten. I could never forget.” The fingers of his left hand twined with her right. “Ye’d said that after today, the bairn could come at any time. I knew that today wasna likely, but I wanted to be here. Just in case.”

“And?”

His brow furrowed. “And what?”

A small cold spot bloomed in her chest. Surely he hadn’t forgotten. “Yes, that’s true – but, Jamie, that’s not what I meant.”

His thumb twisted her ring around her finger.

“I’m no daft, Sassenach. Three years today since I gave this to ye. I was only thinking – the past two years, we never did anything special to mark the date. So I wasna sure whether this year-”

He felt her relax under his arm. Bridging the gap between them, he kissed her lips gently.

“I was hoping you’d make it back in time. I know it’s silly, but I wanted to be with you tonight.”

“It’s no silly. I’ve been minding it all day. Laughing at who I was on that day, and how much I thought I kent but truly didn’t.”

He kissed her again, mouth firm and smiling.

“Ye did teach me a thing or two that night. Though I hope I’ve taught ye maybe a few new things since then.”

She pulled him as close to her as her belly would allow. “Well, I’m lucky to have had such an enthusiastic student.”

He laughed, sighing happily.

“I love you, _mo nighean donn_.” His face was buried in her curls, breathing deep. “It – it frightens me how much. I thought I loved you with all my heart when we wed, but now-”

“It’s more now, today, than yesterday. Or the day before.”

He pulled her even closer. “Aye. It is. And I canna imagine where we’ll be in five years, or ten years time.”

Her hand, trapped between them, lay over his heart. The slow, steady beats were strong under her fingers. Reassurance.

“Still here, I suppose. With a child banging on the door while you’re loving me.”

He sighed. “I ken it will change between us, once the bairn is here. It must.” His flat belly pressed flush against her curved one. His free hand splayed over the skin, tracing her stretch marks, and he pulled back his face to meet her eyes across the pillow. “I may not be able to have ye as much as I’d like. But if he-”

“Or she.”

He smiled. “Or she – if the child needs anything, any time of day or night – it’s our duty as parents to see to it. I hope to never choose the child over you, Claire, but –”

“No, I understand. I do.” Slowly she felt the child rouse from sleep inside of her, lazily moving its tiny limbs back and forth, stretching.

“Jamie-”

“Aye, I feel it.”

For a long moment, they simply enjoyed tracing the movement under her skin. When he finally spoke, his voice was thick. “Claire, I – if ye told me, four years ago this night, that I’d be here, at Lallybroch with ye, with the bairn – with Scotland all fallen apart, but my name restored – I’d have told ye that that wasna my life. Would never be my life.”

Slowly, lazily, she kissed him. “And now?”

His knuckles lightly traced her cheek. “I’m sae glad that it is my life. I canna think – I canna imagine a life without you in it.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr ](http://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/149366058630/shifted-part-1-chapter-7)

_**Part 1: The Beginning** _

Chapter 7

* * *

 

“No!” he bellowed.

Startled, the midwife dropped the hand she’d extended to the apex of Claire’s legs, meaning to check her dilation.

“What do ye mean, no?”

Jamie glared at the woman from the headboard, where he’d gathered a now-conscious but boneless Claire in his arms. Her head lolled weakly against his chest. “I want ye to use that basin to wash yer hands. With the water that’s been boiled.”

“There’s no need, milaird. I wasna-”

“I dinna care what you were or weren’t going to do, mistress. I’m asking you to wash your hands afore touching my wife.”

Helplessly, the midwife glanced to Jenny. From her position holding back Claire’s right leg, however, Jenny was having none of it. “Do it,” she hissed.

Muttering under her breath, the midwife turned to the bureau beside the bed and complied.

“Sassenach,” Jamie said quietly, frantically. “Open yer eyes. Please.”

Her breath had gone shallow as another pain surged over her. “Jamie-” she choked. “Jamie-”

“I’m here, _a nighean_. Please, open yer eyes.”

Blue met blue, weariness with absolute worry.

“I can’t, Jamie. Hurts so much. Just let me sleep.”

“Claire-”

She gasped as the midwife’s cold – but clean – hands spread her below. Jamie tore his eyes from her face to watch Jenny’s face – he couldn’t see another person, man or woman, touch his wife that way, but he trusted Jenny to.

His heart stopped as Jenny’s eyes went wide. Helplessly he looked down the length of Claire’s heaving body toward the midwife’s bloody hands.

Holy God.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](http://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/149697332460/shifted-part-1-chapter-8)

_**Part 1: The Beginning** _

**Chapter 8**

* * *

 

“James, definitely. And Murtagh, for sure. And then the first name, and at least one more middle name.”

Claire paused in grinding the willow bark into powder, standing up straight and rubbing the base of her back. “Do I get a say in any of this?”

“Hmm?” He added another log to the fire and re-stacked the rough-hewn logs off to the side. September had brought an unexpected chill, and no way he’d let his wife catch cold while she went about her doctoring chores.

“I don’t care how many middle names the baby has – we still haven’t decided on a first name.”

He stood with his back to the fire, smiling as the heat warmed him straight through. “Ye do know it’s our custom to give a lad five or even six names?”

“Yes, I’ve observed that. But two things – one, to me only the first name really matters. You Highlanders pick out the rest. And two – Jamie, we have to pick girl names too. Don’t want you caught flat-footed, now.”

He paused for a moment, just looking at her. How the afternoon sun streaming through the window against her back cast her face in shadow, while highlighting her hair – piled on top of her head. “Ah, well, sae long as she’s as bonny as her mother, I dinna care what we name the lass.”

Jamie felt his wife’s glare before he saw it. “Right. So then one day when she asks, I’ll have to tell her that her idiot father didn’t care a whit what she was called, then?”

“Sit, _a nighean_ – ye look tired.” He crossed the room and took her elbow, hoping to ease her into one of the soft chairs before the fire.

Claire jerked her arm from his grasp. “I’ll do no such thing. After all, it’s _your child_ that’s making me so tired. The one who you don’t seem to care what it’s called – so long as _your_ names are accounted for.”

Jamie’s eyes narrowed, and he would have laughed at the indignation on her face had she not felt it so sincerely.

“Is that what you think, Claire? That I dinna care what your thoughts are on the matter? Because I do – ye know I do.”

He reached to take her chin and she let him – though she wanted nothing more than to smack his hand away.

“Yer father’s name was Henry, am I right? I want to respect that – but no son of mine will share a name with an English king.”

“Just a Scottish one, then?” she retorted.

He smiled. “Ah, weel – King James may have had his name afore I had mine, but it’s customary to name a boy after his father, aye?”

“Even though Brian isn’t one of your names?”

He shrugged. “There’s a story in that – for another time, _a nighean_. Though I wouldna mind naming him Brian. That is – if you’re not opposed to it.”

Slowly Claire eased into the chair, stretching out her legs and enjoying feeling her joints pop.

“I don’t mind. I just feel as if I’ve nothing to contribute for a boy’s name. Henry is out, I’m sure Quentin and Lambert are as well.”

“Ah, your uncle’s names?”

She nodded, thinking. “What about Beauchamp?”

He paused, considering. “How would it run, then? Brian James Murtagh Beauchamp Fraser?” He sank to his knees before her, rubbing her belly gently.

“That sounds like a terrible mouthful.” Her fingers wound into his hair, holding him close.

“Mmphm.” The moment stretched as they watched the flames flicker, Jamie absently running his hands on her belly, Claire kneading her fingers into his scalp.

“Perhaps,” Claire pondered after a while. “Now, though – if it’s a girl –”

“God help us.”

She swatted his head, and he grinned.

“If it’s a girl – I want one of her names to be Ellen.”

He rested his chin on her belly and gazed up at her, adoring. Grabbing for her right hand, he kissed her palm and set it on his cheek.

“Yes. What else?”

“My mother’s name was Julia. Have I ever told you that?”

His smile was dreamy. “No, ye haven’t. It’s lovely, though I’ve never kent a lass with that name.”

“No, I don’t suppose you have. It didn’t come into common use until around the time she was born – the late 1800s.” Her thumb stroked his cheek, loving the feel of the start of his beard.

“Ellen and Julia, then. One more for middle names, and then the first.”

Claire eyed him skeptically. “So many names for such a small child.”

Jamie nodded. “The thinking – my parents’ thinking anyway – was that ye name a child such so that they can grow into the name. It spurs the parents to raise the child in a way to earn the name – to be worthy of it.” He paused. “So – I want Claire.”

“Me? Why?”

He shook his head. “Why, she asks. Ye’re only the strongest, bravest woman I’ve ever known. Why wouldn’t I want my daughter named for ye? And,” he added practically,” if we’ve got a Brian, whose second name is after his father, there’s no reason a girl’s second name shouldn’t be after her mother.”

A fizz of excitement started within Claire. This was real. Every day it was more real – the child was more of a child, not an abstraction.

She was struck with another idea. “If we name the boy Brian – we should name the girl the same way.”

One eyebrow raised. “Name her Brian, ye mean? Are ye daft? That’s a man’s name, Sassenach.”

She smiled. “No, idiot. The female version of the name. Brianna.”

He rose up and settled in the chair next to hers. “Brianna? What kind of name is that?”

Surprised at his reaction, Claire huffed. “I’ve known girls with that name in my time. Not often, but it’s used.”

“Ye’ll have my daughter running around with a strange name her whole life?”

Any other moment, Claire would have paused to enjoy the warm glow she felt at Jamie’s already protective, fatherly feelings toward his unborn daughter. Now, though, she was just exasperated.

“Jamie, she’s got me for a mother and you for a father. She’s a Fraser. There will be enough other strange things in her life for others to take notice of – she needs a strong name to help her get through that.” She paused. “Are you suggesting that a girl shouldn’t carry your father’s name?”

“What? No! Never, Claire. It’s just-”

“Jamie, this way she’s named for _both_ of your parents. Did you think of that?”

Clearly he hadn’t. And the thought warmed him more than he had expected.

“Brianna Ellen Julia Claire Fraser.” He tested the name on his tongue.

Her heart burst with love for this man. She looked to the floor, where their feet had found their way toward each other. Absently she rubbed her belly, where Brian – or Brianna – had woken from a mid-day nap.

“We’ve time to decide, Jamie. For now, though –”

He raised a brow. “Aye?”

She smiled – so warm, it lit a flame inside him.

“Get up and lock the door – and help me with this dress. I want to have you by the fire.”

He stood and, grinning wolfishly, extending a hand to help her up. “What will Brian or Brianna do when they find out their mam was frequently seized with bouts of wantonness while she carried?”

She quirked an eyebrow. “They’ll be glad to know that it was this wantonness that accounts for their existence in the first place. And that their father was only too happy to comply.”

He bent, kissed her, and strode quickly to turn the key in the lock.

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](http://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/150027388979/shifted-part-1-chapter-9)

_**Part 1: The Beginning** _

Chapter 9

* * *

“Jamie.”

He realized Jenny was shaking his shoulder. Blinking, he turned his eyes to her, gaze unfocused.

“Jamie. It’s all right. It’s only the bloody show.”

He swallowed. “What? How-”

She smiled at him. “It’s normal. There’s a big burst of blood right afore the babe comes. Almost like, it’s pushing itself out.”

He returned his eyes to Claire’s heaving middle. “Aye, Claire’s been trying to push it out for twelve hours now – about time the bairn agreed.”

Jenny shook her head and resumed her position at Claire’s knee.

“Mistress Fraser?” the midwife’s clean hands had returned between Claire’s legs, a rag bright red with blood tossed casually over her shoulder.

Claire opened her lips but couldn’t speak. Jamie reached for the mug of water and helped wet her lips. “Aye, mistress – what now?”

“Ye must bear down, Mistress Fraser. It’s time.”

“What?” Claire croaked.

Jenny turned to look at her brother and good-sister. She was glad that Claire’s back was to Jamie’s front – had Claire been in her right mind, she would have felt physical pain at the tension and hurt on Jamie’s face. Tension and hurt – but also determination.

Jamie’s panicked eyes met his sister’s – and she smiled kindly. “It means ye can push, Claire,” she said. “Push for all ye’re worth.”

Jenny pulled Claire’s legs wider apart. Jamie brought Claire to a sitting position, his hands in a death grip on her sides, her back wedged between his hips.

“It’s time, _a nighean_. Ye can do it. Please. Push, Claire.”

He felt her body seize with another pain – but though her eyes remained closed, she wrinkled her forehead and he felt her back clench as she pushed with the contraction.

As soon as it passed, she gasped loudly and moaned in pain.

“That’s it, Mistress Fraser,” the midwife crooned. “That’s it. Work with yer body now.”

Jamie closed his eyes as another pain came upon Claire. “Breathe, Claire. Dinna forget to breathe.”

She gasped in deep lungfuls of air, panting hard and shallow.

Jamie watched the midwife knead Claire’s heaving stomach, fascinated to see the entire mass move.

“That’s it, Claire. Keep doing that,” Jenny soothed.

With the next pain, Claire screamed. Her hand blindly groped into the air and Jamie took it, twining their fingers together and pressing it hard to the bed.

“Let it out, Sassenach. I’m here. Let it out. Lean on me. Give me the pain. I’m here.” Tears streamed down his face. His soul was surely ripping in two, just as the child was being ripped from her body. Through blurry vision he looked down to see the midwife still pushing on Claire’s belly, one hand red to the elbow with blood.

“Breathe, Claire. I’m here.”

Another pain, another scream, another push. He squeezed her fingers and pushed against her back, bracing her against him. Again. And again.

Half an hour passed. Claire’s nails had raked deep furrows in his arm, and his shirt and kilt were slick with their sweats. His face was wet – with sweat and tears – as he held and loved his wife, murmuring to her, soothing her, powerless to protect her.

“Jenny.” Was that hoarse voice truly his?

Jenny looked up, startled to see the depths of pain and worry on her brother’s face.

“Jenny. Tell me. Is she dying?”

She couldn’t respond – but then she didn’t have to.

“I feel the heid!” The midwife’s voice broke Jamie’s concentration.

“Truly?” his voice was so hopeful, Jenny would have laughed.

“Yes! Push, Mistress Fraser!”

“Did ye hear that, Sassenach? Push! Ye’re almost done.” He cupped her cheek, clammy with sweat and red from pure exertion.

She opened her eyes and met his. “Jamie?” her voice was so small, so lost.

“Claire. Ye’re doing so well. Just a bit more, _mo chridhe_. Almost there. Please, Claire. Push. Please.”

Drawing from strength she didn’t know she had, she bore down and pushed. And pushed. And pushed.

And Jamie saw Claire’s belly abruptly shrink, before the midwife twisted her wrists and drew out a bloody, pink, screaming little girl.

* * *

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](http://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/150353867870/shifted-part-1-chapter-10)

_**Part 1: The Beginning** _

**Chapter 10  
**

* * *

 

It was mid-morning, and Jamie Fraser couldn’t stop staring at his daughter’s face.

Seated at the nook in their bedroom, the windowpane latched tightly against the chill outside, he held Brianna’s head wholly within one palm, her tiny body resting comfortably on the inside of his forearm. Her eyes – so blue – darted about the room, unfocused. Her limbs struggled against the blanket wrapped tight around her. She grunted, softly and then louder.

“Hush, _a graidh_. Hush. Yer mam’s a wee bit tired, just now. Let’s let her rest a bit, aye?”

Two things he knew for sure about his daughter. One, she was red-headed. And two, she had powerful lungs.

Brianna’s cries as soon as the midwife had placed her on Claire’s belly had torn at his heart. He’d heard newborns cry, of course – but not one so new. The poor lass was shrieking.

Claire, exhausted but radiant, slowly lifted an arm to rest on Brianna’s back. Not caring that the baby was still smeared with blood and God knew what else, she held her daughter’s face between her breasts.

“Hello, love,” she whispered.

Jamie watched his own hand – almost like it didn’t belong to him – slowly rest on Claire’s, touching Brianna for the first time.

So soft – so fragile.

He felt Brianna’s tiny chest rise and fall with her cries, and his heart cracked wide open. “Hush, Brianna,” he murmured, gently stroking from her wee bottom down the back of her legs. “Hush.”

Claire sat up straighter, only to be pushed down by Jenny.

“Ye must deliver the afterbirth, Claire,” she said, kneading Claire’s tender stomach.

The midwife stepped forward, unfolding one of the cloths Claire had boiled the day before. “Here, Mistress Fraser. Let me take her.”

“No.” Claire’s voice was faint, but the steel was unmistakable. “No. You can’t take her away from me.”

Brianna’s cries softened to whimpers as Jamie continued to caress her. His entire hand fit around her back, his forefinger tracing the impossibly small bumps of her backbone. His other arm tightened around Claire.

“She must get cleaned up, Claire.”

Claire only held Brianna closer. “No. Not yet, please not yet.”

Sighing, Jamie met the midwife’s exasperated gaze. “Give me the cloth, mistress,” he said, reaching to take it from her and turning back to Claire.

From the corner of his eye he saw the midwife huff and take a position next to Jenny, together kneading Claire’s stomach as the afterbirth slowly slipped out.

“It’s all right, Claire,” he whispered. “Here, let’s put this around her. She must be cold.”

Sniffing, Claire cupped Brianna’s small bottom, creating space for Jamie to wrap the cloth around their daughter’s tiny, panting back. The baby had completely gone silent, her small face now rooting blindly against Claire’s breasts.

Tucking the cloth tightly around Brianna, Jamie rested his chin on Claire’s shoulder and kissed her cheek. It struck him that right here, on this bed, was his whole world.

“My God, Claire. Look at her.”

Brianna picked that moment to open her eyes. And Jamie and Claire, spent, began to cry.

Through the haze of tears, he helped Claire sit up straight and cradle Brianna to her breast. Arms locked tight around them, he nuzzled Claire’s neck and watched over her shoulder as Brianna began to nurse. He traced a finger across Brianna’s brow, down her bitty nose, over her wee pursed lips and up the slope of Claire’s breast. So small, so perfect.

Brianna’s blue eyes darted back and forth, up to Claire, over to Jamie.

“She can’t see very much yet,” Claire whispered, absolutely serene.

“What do ye mean?” Softly he kissed and sucked on his wife’s neck, tasting the salt of her sweat, unable to tear his eyes away from his daughter.

“Newborns can only see about one foot away from their eyes. Just enough to see me, to learn my face as she nurses.” Claire’s finger traced the shells of Brianna’s tiny ears.

“So she can see ye, then?”

“Yes. And right now she can see you, too.”

After Brianna pulled away from Claire’s nipple, Claire had finally relented and given Brianna to the midwife, but only if Jamie brought her to the foot of the bed himself. He unfolded his long legs from his cramped position behind her, and Claire placed their daughter in his hands.

He was stunned at just how tiny she really was, and for a moment was convinced he’d drop her straight to the floor. But he slowly, gently paced to the side bureau where the midwife had a basin and clean cloth waiting.

“That’s the other water and the boiled cloths, aye?” He asked, cradling the baby to his shoulder.

The midwife – tired, exasperated, and frankly at her wit’s end – had had enough of taking orders from a man, even this man who had supported his wife through her ordeal like none other she had ever seen.

“Yes. Now will ye give me yer daughter afore that blood and all else gets caked on her permanently? I ken weel what I’m doing.”

Narrowing his eyes, he gingerly handed Brianna over for her first bath. Glancing back at Claire, he saw Jenny cleaning the clotting blood from between her legs. From this angle, he could see just how much blood it had taken to deliver Brianna. God help him, had he seen this an hour before, when Claire was in the throes of her pains –

“Ah, then, that’s a good lassie,” the midwife crooned softly, cupping her hand to draw water over the infant’s limbs. “Ye’re so fine and fair, just like yer mam. And that hair – just like yer da. You’ll be a real beauty, you will be.”

Jamie turned back to watch Brianna – and took the chance to really look at her. Tiny limbs flailed in all directions as she squirmed and mewled, hair showing more and more red as the midwife rinsed the dried blood from her crown. Perfect, pale, unblemished skin. He swore right then and there to do everything in his power, for the rest of her life, to keep it that way.

An unexpected bolt hit him straight through the heart. Faith. She must have been as perfect as Brianna – perhaps even more so. And he’d never seen her. He swallowed hard.

But the moment passed as midwife patted Brianna dry and swaddled her tightly before handing her back to Jamie.

“Ah, there’s a good lassie. She’ll be wanting rest, now. Ye should get some – and yer wife as well, that goes without saying.”

“Aye, I’m mindful of that.” Greedily he held Brianna to him tightly, watching her tiny eyelids close. “I’ll do so when I’m ready. I think I’ll hold my daughter just now.”

Turning back to Claire, he saw her standing against the wall, gripping the headboard as Jenny stripped the bed and replaced it with fresh linens. Clad in a new shift, she shook with exhaustion. But she only had eyes for Jamie – and Brianna – and smiled widely as he approached.

Jamie watched as Jenny eased Claire under the covers, and he pulled up a chair to sit beside her, helping her maneuver around her tender stomach to settle on her side. He bent and kissed her forehead gently.

“You rest now, _mo nighean donn_. I’ll mind the wee lass.”

“Jamie – you need to sleep, I can’t imagine – ”

“It’s all right, Claire. It’s my turn to get to know Brianna – ye’ve had the keeping of her these past months.” His thumb stroked Claire’s temple, her eyes already drooping.

Tenderly he bent and brushed his lips along the shell of her ear.

“Thank you for my daughter.”

It was the last words she heard as she finally, finally sank into an exhausted sleep.

That had been about four hours before – right as dawn was touching the horizon. Jenny had sent the midwife to bed before giving Jamie’s shoulder a congratulatory squeeze. He ripped his eyes from Brianna’s sleeping face to clutch his sister’s forearm.

“Jenny, I – I canna repay you for what you’ve done tonight. I –”

Affectionately she ruffled his hair. Any doubts she’d had about Jamie’s commitment to being in the birthing room were shattered long before Brianna had arrived. Jamie and Claire had truly been one body, drawing strength and taking comfort from one another. Claire clearly would not have survived her ordeal without him.

“Ach, it was nothing, _a ruaidh_. Had it not been for you and your stubbornness, ye wouldna be holding your beautiful daughter now.”

He swallowed. Just how close they’d come to that dark precipice was something he didn’t care to think about.

“Though I have to say, Jamie, God bless the puir lass. She’s the spitting image of you.”

He laughed, releasing much of the tension that had curdled in the pit of his stomach for the past day. “Ach, off wi’ ye then. Go tell Ian and the weans there’s a new Fraser at Lallybroch.”

She smiled, kissed his forehead, and slipped out the door – leaving Jamie, Claire, and Brianna alone together for the first time.

Now as the sun’s rays touched his daughter’s cheek, highlighting the hairs as fine as a bee’s, he found himself whispering to the baby in the _Gaidhlig_.

“I love ye, _mo nighean ruaidh_. I love yer mother something fierce, and I thought that’s what I’d feel for you. But now – it’s so much more, I canna explain it.” He paused, thinking. “Ye may not have come at a good time, _a graidh_ , but yer mother and I – we wanted ye so much. I know it will be hard going sometimes, and God help me if ye’re half as stubborn as yer mam and I are. But there’s nothing in the world now that’s more important to me than you.”

Brianna gurgled. Jamie kissed her fair brow. Turning back to the bed, he saw Claire watching them, raised up on one elbow. Her face held a smile bigger than any he’d ever seen.

Jamie carefully crossed the room, sat beside Claire on the bed, wrapped one arm around her and used the other to place Brianna on her mother’s chest. He buried his nose in Claire’s curls, breathing deeply.

“We’ve really done it,” she breathed, amazed. “She’s here. I’m here. With you.”

He nodded against her, words failing him.

“Tell me this is real, Jamie,” Claire whispered, unbelieving.

Jamie held his women close. “Aye, it is, Claire. It is.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](http://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/150678942289/shifted-part-1-chapter-11)

_**Part 1: The Beginning** _

**Chapter 11**

* * *

 

Claire slowly drifted awake. She must have dozed for a while – the light behind her eyelids indicated it was mid-day at least. Eyes still closed, she stretched languidly, feeling a rush of tenderness at her abdomen and between her legs, but otherwise strangely refreshed. Renewed.

Shifting her head on the pillow, she froze. Was that – carbolic acid? Strange, the tricks your mind played on the precipice of exhaustion. She hadn’t felt this tired since the War – no wonder her brain had conjured up the familiar scents of the hospital tent.

She sighed. Her breasts felt full, tender. Brianna had to eat.

Claire opened her eyes, easing up on her elbows.

Terror surged.

“Claire! You’re finally awake!” Frank cheerily looked up from his newspaper, uncrossing his legs in a folding chair near the foot of her bed.

Her mouth gaped in a silent scream. She blinked twice, then retched.

Frank bolted to Claire’s side, one hand on her nightgowned shoulder, the other reaching for a wastebasket. He ran a hand up and down her back, trying to soothe her.

“There, there. It must be the side effect of the anesthesia, darling. Just get it all out.”

In truth, there was nothing to get out – her stomach was empty. Gasping, she sat up straight against the headboard.

“Frank – the baby. Where is she?”

“She? How did you know it was a girl?” He brushed a stray curl behind her ear. Claire’s stomach rolled at the touch. “The doctor said you were completely under for the entire procedure. And a good thing, too – the baby’s head was turned, and he said there was no way you’d have survived without the caesarian.”

Claire’s chest rapidly rose and fell with shallow breaths. Dimly she realized the onset of a panic attack. “I need to see my baby,” she panted. “Where is she?”

Frank’s eyes regarded hers with a dozen unanswered questions. “I’ll fetch her, then. Be right back. Mum.” He grinned, kissed her cheek, and stood, quickly sliding out the door.

Claire was alone.

Slowly she took stock of her surroundings. The electric clock on the bedside table flashed gently. She wore a scratchy rayon nightgown, her hair tied back in a style not of her choosing. Glancing down at her trembling hands, she saw Frank’s gold ring on her left hand – and Jamie’s iron ring on her right.

Jamie. Oh, God, Jamie.

So he had sent her back, then. To live again with Frank, to raise the child in the twentieth century. She had cut her heart out. And it was clear – even after two minutes – that there was no life without it.

Overcome, Claire doubled over in pain, hissing as the motion upset her stitches.

She needed her baby. Brianna. Her anchor, her link to Jamie. Where was she?

Footsteps at the door – Frank emerged, carefully carrying a pink-wrapped bundle.

“Ah, here she is – it’s your mummy,” he crooned to the baby. Slowly, gently he sat beside Claire, holding the baby out for her.

Brianna was clean – she smelled sterile. The pink blanket and cap brought out the flush in her cheeks as she dozed peacefully.

Claire took the baby from him. Overcome, she slipped the cap off Brianna’s head. Red fuzz. Her heart surged with love – for Brianna, for Jamie.

Then an unbelievable, yawning ache.

Claire swallowed. “She’s beautiful.”

Frank nodded. “She is. Just like her mother.”

At one point in their marriage, hearing those words would have warmed Claire from the inside. But here, today, with Jamie’s daughter in her arms – she felt nothing. Nothing for the man who sat beside her, who would raise Jamie’s child.

Licking her lips, Claire began to unbutton her nightgown.

“Claire? What on earth are you doing?”

She glared at him – his face scandalized.

“Nursing her, Frank. I’m her mother. It’s what I need to do.”

“Nonsense – not while the drugs are still in your system. She just finished a bottle back in the nursery. You needn’t worry about a thing.” He kissed her brow. “You’ve had a shock, Claire. Let me take care of you – of the both of you. Please.”

This is what Jamie had wanted for her – for Brianna.

Oh, how it hurt.

Looking down at Brianna – who would never know the tender, stubborn, amazing man who had fathered her – Claire’s veins turned to ice. Steeling herself, she plastered a fake smile on her face. The chasm of grief within her widened.

“Of course, darling,” she whispered. “Of course.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](http://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/151006355182/shifted-part-1-chapter-12)

_**Part 1: The Beginning** _

**Chapter 12**

* * *

 

It was deep in the night when Claire awoke, breasts aching. Breathing heavily, she tried and failed to still her racing heart. Brianna would be hungry soon – and Claire didn’t want the baby’s cries to wake Frank.

Frank hadn’t fought her on Brianna’s given names – but of course, her surname was Randall. He had no idea how bitter of a pill that was for Claire to swallow. Had no idea how difficult it was for Claire to look at him every day and see his putative six-times great grandfather. Perhaps this was her punishment for being unfaithful – for deliberately choosing Jamie over Frank.

But if Frank’s face was her punishment – Jamie’s face, in Brianna, was her greatest joy. Claire so treasured the quiet times when it was just her and her daughter. During the small, dark hours of the night, while Brianna nursed and Claire stroked her hair, she told her all she knew about the Frasers – her aunt, uncle, cousins, grandparents, and, most of all, her father.

Now it was time to nurse – and Claire felt the pull to go to her daughter. To care for her, and keep her safe. As Jamie would have.

In the darkness of the bedroom she fumbled for the lamp at the side of her bed – but her hands grasped air. Had she settled further across the bed while she slept? God knew, she dozed fitfully these days, sometimes waking tangled in the empty sheets on Frank’s side.

She shifted closer to the edge of the bed – only for her elbow to land squarely on Frank’s chest. What was he doing there? He always slept on the other side –

“Christ, Sassenach! Are ye trying to kill me?”

“Jamie?” Her fingers blindly reached to find his face.

“Ye’re expecting someone else, then?” His fingers found hers and pulled her hand to his face. Her thumb traced the rough stubble at his jaw, and she crumpled against him.

Quickly Jamie wrapped his arms around her. “What’s this, Claire? Have ye been dreaming again?”

He pushed her face into the crook of his neck, gently drawing a hand up and down her back. She breathed him in deeply, and began to sob.

“Hush, _a nighean_. Hush. It’s that damned dream again, isn’t it? Where I sent ye back?”

She nodded, not capable of speech, clutching his nightshirt.

He sighed. “It’s all right, Claire. It’s all right. I’m here. Brianna’s just here. I love you.”

Warmth and sweet, sweet relief bloomed in her heart. Acting purely from instinct, she pulled his head down for a scorching kiss.

“I love you, James Fraser,” she murmured against his mouth after a long moment.

He bit her lower lip, teasing.

She tasted his smile.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Originally posted on tumblr](http://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/151333221600/shifted-part-2-chapter-1)

_**Part 2 - The Baptism** _

_**Chapter 1** _

**Lallybroch, December 1746** _**  
** _

* * *

 

“Remind me what my role will be.”

Jamie watched Claire comb out her hair in front of the vanity. He shifted against the pillows, one hand holding a sleeping Brianna to his chest.

“I should think it’s fairly obvious,” he said to his wife’s back. “Stand afore the priest, hold the bairn, repeat a few words after him, and that’s it.”

He watched her grimace through a particularly knotty tangle.

“I know _that_ ,” she said after a moment. “Only, it’s been years since I’ve been to a baptism – and I don’t know whether things are done differently here, or whether you’re expected to do different things from me, or – ” She huffed, shifting the candle on the end table so that she had better light.

“I dinna think so,” he remarked. Absently his finger traced up and down Brianna’s tender back. She was so tiny, but wonderfully solid.

“I suppose we’ll answer the priest together – one voice, ye ken. Ye’ll mind the Latin words?”

“One voice? Since when has _that_ ever been true for us?”

Laying down her comb, Claire turned around on the stool to face him. Her curls had exploded around her head as her hair dried – and now that all the tangles were out, she felt cleaner than she had in months.

And she knew that – lit from behind by the single candle – the volume of her hair, the deep neck of her shift, and the lateness of the hour would be a potent combination for Jamie.

She smiled as the long column of his throat swallowed hard.

“Ye are so lovely, Claire.” His voice rasped, softly.“Ye’ll be the bonniest mother to ever stand for her bairn in front of God and family.”

Motherhood and God – not exactly the reaction she’d hoped for. Still, the reverence in his voice kindled a small, warm glow within her.

“I’m glad you still think me bonnie, then – now that I’m somebody’s mother.”

With a glance down at Brianna, Jamie extended his free hand to Claire. She rose, took it, and settled against him on the bed. Eyes just a few inches from Brianna’s sleeping face, she rested her hand atop Jamie’s, cradling their daughter.

“Do you think she dreams?”

He kissed the crown of her head. “I shouldna know of what – she eats and sleeps, mostly. And smiles, but that’s just for her da.”

“She’s so easy with you, Jamie. Much more so than Ian, or Murtagh even.” Her mind flashed to the first time Murtagh had held Brianna – she couldn’t tell who had been more terrified.

“Ah, weel – I’m the only man in her life who doesna have hair covering most of his face, ken. Maybe that’s it.”

His lips settled on her forehead, and held them there for a long while.

“I was thinking today,” he said at length.

“A dangerous thing, that.”

He hummed, and she felt his smile.

“Perhaps it’s only because we’ll be seeing a priest in the morning – but I was thinking of when we wed.”

Claire smiled and, turning her face, kissed the side of his neck.

“Oh?”

“No, not _that_ part – though God knows it’s always near the top of my mind.  I was thinking about – vows.”

His right hand snaked down her arm, tracing the spot at her wrist where her blood had once mingled with his.

“I ken that at the time, I didna truly understand what I vowed to you. But now, _a nighean_ – now I know they’re no just pretty words. Now it’s actually come to pass.”

“Richer or poorer? Sickness and health? I’d say,” she smiled.

His thumb twisted her iron ring thoughtfully.

“No, not those ones. Weel, yes, I suppose – but I was thinking of the others.”

She squeezed his fingers. “Tell me?”

He straightened against the pillows. “Blood of my blood – bone of my bone.” He swallowed. “That’s Brianna, Sassenach. Your blood and mine – your bone and mine.”

Claire’s heart stuttered. She pulled back to meet his eyes. “Jamie, I – ”

His eyes swam with unshed tears. “I gave ye my body – and you gave me yours. And now we two are one, in her.”

A long moment passed. Her heart raced – she saw its counterpoint in the rapid pulse on Jamie’s neck. Slowly, gently, she drew his forehead to hers.

“I have never loved you more than at this moment,” she whispered. “It’s – I – Jamie – ”

“Oh, Claire. My love. I know.”

–

“She willna eat?” Jamie crouched, naked, in front of the fireplace, stoking the flames to wakefulness.

“Poor thing can’t seem to make up her mind,” Claire sighed, wearily swaying back and forth before the window, a fussy Brianna tucked against her shoulder.

“It’s completely frosted over again,” she remarked, tracing one finger along a frost pattern on the windowpane. “I can barely see the dooryard.”

Jamie rose and settled behind Claire, kissing Brianna’s brow. Her small eyes were finally starting to drowse. “It _is_ nearly Hogmanay. But it’s colder than usual, aye.”

He paused, deliberating.

Slowly, slowly, Jamie sank his face into the curve of Claire’s neck, hands settling at her hips. He stepped closer, pressing his back to her front, lightly sucking her shoulder.

She melted against him. “Jamie-”

“Do ye know – it’s the longest we’ve gone wi’out lying together since we came back from France?” He kissed her shoulder languidly, thoughtfully. “I ken well that yer body is still not quite yer own again – but I mind what ye said to me last night, about being someone’s mother now.” Careful of Brianna on Claire’s shoulder, Jamie moved one hand to cup her breast, thumb teasing the tender nipple.

He smiled, feeling Claire’s breath hitch. “I find ye even more beautiful, even more desirable, now that ye’re someone’s mother. You created and bore life, _mo nighean donn_. Ye did so, and endured such a terrible ordeal, for me. How could I not love you, and desire you, even more?”

He rocked his hips slightly into the small of her back, seeking friction. Her face reflected in the window – eyes closed, mouth open, deep breaths - was the picture of desire.

But as much as he wanted her – and he wanted her badly – he wanted, needed her to give the final yea or nay. “Is it too soon, Claire?” he whispered, nose buried in her hair. “Are you tender inside, still?”

She turned to face him – cheeks flushed, lips parted, hair all curling around her face. Slowly she smiled, took his hand, and led him to the bed, pausing only to quietly lay Brianna in her cradle.

Her skin glowed in the firelight. He cupped her breasts and gently kissed her forehead, clearly wanting to go slow. Greedily she pushed his mouth to hers, finding and sucking on his lower lip.

Gasping, she pulled back after a moment. His eyes were fire – as were hers.

“I can’t wait any longer, Jamie. I can’t. I want you. Just please, please be careful. I don’t know – ”

He swallowed her words, smiling, and eased her back onto the bed.

 


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](http://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/151656615166/shifted-part-2-chapter-2)

_**Part 2 - The Baptism** _

_**Chapter 2** _

* * *

Jamie lay on his side, sated, watching Claire nurse Brianna.

Neither of them had lasted particularly long – their desperation too great – and Brianna had dozed only just long enough for them to finish. But he felt exhilarated – the exhaustion from spending the previous night with a cranky baby melted away. And Claire – she hadn’t stopped smiling since he’d laid her down among the pillows and slowly, tenderly loved her.

“Better?”

She ruffled his messy hair. “Much.”

“Mmphmm.” He kissed the inside of her wrist.

Brianna released, squirming. Claire quickly burped her and handed her over to Jamie, who promptly settled the baby on his chest.

“She seems to like the skin-on-skin. It soothes her,” he whispered, watching Brianna’s eyes dart around the room.

“She feels safe with you.”

He snorted. “God knows that may change at any time.”

She frowned. “Don’t talk like that.”

He sighed. “Ye know it’s true, Sassenach. Mind what happened the other day?”

She did. She had been in the dooryard, taking advantage of a rare mild day to help Jenny string up the washing. Slowly she was easing back into the rhythm of life at Lallybroch – after remaining in bed under Jamie’s watchful eye for ten days following Brianna’s birth, she’d been itching to make herself useful again.

Almost back to normal now – except, of course, for the newborn slung tightly across her chest, a bright knit cap tucked around her tiny ears to protect from the chill. Had Jamie had his way, Brianna would have remained inside for the rest of the winter – he’d relented only after Claire had sworn to keep the baby covered from head to toe any time they ventured outside.

“I canna remember the last time the weather was this fine, so close to Christmas,” Jenny remarked, pinning up two of Young Jamie’s well-worn smocks. “No wonder Ian and Jamie were keen to walk the tatty fields – the top of the ground won’t be so frozen today, ken. Though I dinna think Ian realized the mud would make it hard going, wi’ his wooden leg…”

Claire shook out one of Jamie’s thick work shirts. Startled by the motion, Brianna sneezed.

Quickly Claire tossed the shirt over one arm and unfastened the neck of her cloak, pushing the cap back from Brianna’s forehead. The baby’s limbs flailed and her eyes darted, unfocused – but no harm done. Claire kissed Brianna’s brow before easing the baby’s head back between her breasts, tucking the hat over her ears, and buttoning up the cloak.

“She all right?” Jenny’s voice was muffled from behind a large linen tablecloth, half-hung.

“She’s fine.” Claire carefully strode over to Jenny’s side, pulling pins from her sleeve and settling Jamie’s shirt on the line. “I know I shouldn’t worry about every little thing, but – ”

“Ach, it’s fine, Claire. It cost you dear to carry her, and bear her – I dinna blame you for such concern.” Bending back to the wash bucket, Jenny drew out one of Claire’s shifts. “My brother, though – weel. If he’s this protective now, just wait til the lass is old enough to walk, or play in the yard wi’ her cousins. Puir girl wouldna be able to do anything fun.”

Claire reflected as she hung up two pairs of Jamie’s thick socks. Jenny was teasing – but there was a note of truth in her words. Jamie hated letting Brianna out of his sight – he was convinced that the moment he did, something was bound to happen to her – meaning he’d utterly failed as a father. It was good that he’d gone with Ian, today – he needed another man’s company for a while, another father whom he could ask about such things.

“It’s all still so new, Jenny – we both don’t quite believe she’s really here.”

Claire didn’t need to see Jenny’s face to recognize a smile in her voice. “She’s here, right enough – though it truly willna sink in until after your second, or third, maybe.”

Claire swallowed. Jenny had no way of knowing that Brianna had been her second – and that there may not ever be a third. She opened her mouth – not quite sure how to reply – but stepped back sharply when a small form darted under the tablecloth.

“Fergus? What on earth – ” Claire reached for Brianna by reflex.

The boy doubled over, hands on his knobby knees, breathing hard. “Milady – ” he gasped.

Jenny pushed past the washing and stood by Claire. “What’s got into you, Fergus? Ye’ve left a filthy smudge on the tablecloth – ”

“English…soldiers…milady,” he panted. “Coming…approaching the house.”

Claire’s blood turned to ice.

Patrols of ten or so men had scoured the Highlands in the eight months since Culloden, seeking out every last man who had pledged gold or loyalty to King James and Prince Charlie. Jamie’s revolutionary activities were well known and documented – but as he had spared himself and his men from the final battle – and had gained a pardon through a process which Claire still failed to fully understand - charges could not be formally brought against him.

But formal charges and needless harassment were different things. The terms of Jamie’s pardon meant that he could not cross the estate’s borders. So the patrols made it a point to always stop by Lallybroch – enquire as to the crofters’ output, the number of men working the fields, and especially whether Jamie – even though he was no longer the laird in name – was doing something, anything, not directly related to estate business.

And now they had the Dress Act to enforce – a law whose sole aim was to eradicate the tartan, that most basic symbol of Highland culture. Any man found wearing a tartan, let alone in the possession of one, could be arrested and imprisoned on suspicion of harboring rebel sentiments.

When news of the Dress Act had made its way to Lallybroch – just when Claire had told him it would – Jamie had quietly pulled away from the discussion in the parlor and climbed the stairs. Claire had followed him to their bedroom and watched him gently fold the three Fraser plaids in his possession – his father’s, his own, and a smaller length that had belonged to his mother – do them up with string, kiss them, and hide them under a floorboard.

“The clans are already gone and scattered,” he’d remarked to Claire later that night, head on her stomach while she ran soothing fingers through his hair. “What difference does a bitty piece of wool make now, to anyone?”

Claire hated to think of Frank whenever she was in bed with Jamie – but something he’d told her, right before she fell through the stones, came to mind.

“Frank – he told me once -” She paused, feeling guilty.

He turned his head and kissed her stomach – right on the marks left by Brianna’s birth.  “I dinna mind, Sassenach. Go on.”

Her thumb gently ran over his wide forehead. “Yes, well – he told me that it wasn’t so much the item itself, but rather what it symbolizes. Even though the clans will never unite again, it doesn’t matter. You don’t want anything to remind anyone of what once was – what once could have been.”

He sighed. “I mind you said it was coming – but still, I canna believe it’s here now.”

A long pause, interrupted only by the crackling of the fire.

“I saved them for Brianna, ken,” he said at length. “It’s my duty as her father to teach her the way things were. And even if the English come down on the _Gaidhlig_ next, we’ll be ready.” Reaching up a big hand to cup Claire’s face, he stroked her cheek. “She must know her customs. She’ll know them, and love them, as her father’s people have – and will continue to, God willing.”

Claire swallowed at the memory – wishing she had Jamie’s bravura in that moment.

“How many, Fergus?” she faintly heard Jenny ask.

“Eight – ten? And horses and a wagon, too,” he added helpfully. He stood up straight, thin shoulders still panting. “Shall I go fetch milord and Monsieur Murray, then?”

“Please, Fergus – they’re at the potato fields. Tell them we’re all right – but hurry. Please hurry.” Claire squeezed the boy’s thin shoulder and he took off like a shot.

“Jenny – ”

Claire’s heart froze as a single soldier, atop a beautiful horse, entered through the stone gate into the dooryard.

 


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](http://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/151976036344/shifted-part-2-chapter-3)

_**Part 2: The Baptism** _

Chapter 3

* * *

Jenny thrust a damp shirt over her shoulder, squaring her shoulders. “Claire – same as last time – dinna speak unless you must.”

One arm locked around Brianna, Claire planted her feet firmly on the stones of the dooryard. The soldier slowly brought up his horse straight before the two women, touching the tip of his hat in greeting.

“Good morning, madam. Is this the place called Brack Too-rack?”

 _Dorset_ , Claire thought. _He’s a long way from home._

“Aye, ‘tis.” Jenny’s response was clipped, short. “And to what pleasure do we owe your visit today?”

The soldier shifted in his saddle, tilting his head quizzically. Captain’s marks glinted on his sleeves in the mid-day sun. “Are you the lady of the manor, then?”

“I am Janet Murray. I run this _estate_ with my husband, brother, and good-sister.”

“Ah, that’s right – your brother is that notorious red-headed Jacobite. Tell me, madam – is he about today?”

Claire watched the remaining soldiers – some on horseback, others on foot – slowly pull through the gate and come to a rest – in perfect formation – behind the captain.

“He’s up in the fields wi’ my husband just now – one of the lads has gone to fetch him.”

The captain idly brushed off flecks of road dust from his knee. “Odd that he’d leave the women of the house alone – unprotected.”

Brianna stirred beneath Claire’s cloak. Claire felt her daughter’s tiny lips brush against the side of her breast – rooting for a nipple.

 _Of all times_. Silently willing Brianna to quickly lose interest in the prospect of food, Claire bit her lip hard.

“From what? You?” Jenny sneered. “What is it ye’re looking for this time, then? We havena much to offer in the way of hospitality these days – yer friends took half the estate’s bread, wine, and cheese when they visited two weeks ago.”

“Sadly, no,” he sighed. The regret sounded almost genuine. “Just checking on the proper enforcement of the Dress Act, you know. What with Christmas coming, you’d be surprised just how many of your countrymen seem to have forgotten the king’s law amid their festivities.”

His eyes shifted, lighting on Claire for the first time. His head tilted, intrigued.

“You haven’t a length of kilt stored under that cloak, madam, do you? Or even a whole Scotsman?” His voice meant to tease – but it roused something in Claire.

Her eyes narrowed, arm settling tighter around Brianna – who hadn’t paused in her rooting. Suddenly there wasn’t enough space between her daughter and this leering soldier.

_What the hell._

“If you must know, Captain, it’s called tartan. Not kilt. And we haven’t got any on the premises anyway – your precious army recently saw to that as well. Don’t you talk to each other?”

The captain’s eyebrows shot up almost to his wig. “So it’s true, then – Fraser really does have an Englishwoman for a wife.”

Jenny glared at Claire, exasperated.

“I’m a Scot now, actually – side effect of marrying one. What’s it to you, anyway?”

He smiled, showing a mouth full of crooked teeth. “Nothing, madam – it’s just hard to believe that anyone – especially a lady such as yourself – would willingly choose a life of penury and manual labor in the squalor of the Highlands.”

_Do not sink to his level, Beauchamp – let it go._

The captain shifted in his stirrups, his eyes thoughtful in a way Claire didn’t like one bit. “Or, perhaps, the choice was made for you?” He gestured toward Claire’s cloak, where the baby’s muffled whimpers had become unmistakable. “Surely in your time living among the Scots, you must have realized that they can be…single-minded in their pursuits. Tell me – did you will him to come to you, Mistress Fraser? You are quite the vision – I’m sure it was no big trouble on his part. Or – ”

He smiled. Claire dimly thought of the Cheshire cat. “Or did he force you?”

“You bastard – ” Claire hissed. Jenny gripped her arm, preventing Claire from taking a step further. Jostled by the motion, Brianna started to shriek.

Quickly unbuttoning her cloak and easing Brianna up in her sling, Claire cradled her screaming daughter to her neck – eyes locked on the captain.

“I said we’ve no tartan here – and that’s the truth. So unless you want to tie us up, flog our men, ransack the house, or whatever it is you brought your goons here to do – just do it and get on your way.”

Heavy footsteps pounded on the stones – Claire heard the whisper of linens just as she felt a solid arm settle at her back.

“My lady said we’ve nothing here – ye’re welcome to check for yerself, but we’ve no reason to lie.”

Claire sagged in relief against Jamie. He was stiff as a ramrod behind her – anger held barely in check.

The captain smirked. “James Fraser himself. I’ve heard about you. God only knows how many strings you had to pull to not be dangling on the end of a noose right now.”

Jamie took a deep breath, steeling himself, carefully considering how to respond.

But Jenny beat him to it. “Is this a social call, Captain? Or have you more insults to hurl at my brother and good-sister? If no, then ye’ll be kind enough to leave me to my washing.”

Jamie gently pushed Claire behind him, placing himself between his wife and the soldiers and reaching out a hand to calm his sister. Claire turned so her back was flush with Jamie’s, opened her shift under the shelter of her cloak, and settled Brianna against her breast. Quickly the baby latched on, suckling contentedly. Quiet.

“Insult me all ye like – but no my sister, no my wife. I can offer ye some potatoes for your trouble, but there’s nothing of value in the house.”

Claire almost laughed at the absurdity of the situation – nursing her baby in the open, damp laundry flapping in the slight breeze, and Jamie facing ten English soldiers with nothing but potatoes to buy their safety.

She let out a small sigh of relief as Murtagh’s dour features rounded the corner of the house. He met Claire’s gaze, pace quickening, and silently slipped past her to stand at Jamie’s right.

Focusing back on Brianna, Claire heard the captain dismount. “Potatoes? We haven’t had any of those in a while.” Boots sounded on the flagstones – he must be approaching Jamie. “I do believe we’ve got a few empty baskets in the wagon – Corporal!”

“Sir!” A high-pitched man’s voice chirped from the rear.

“Fetch something big enough to feed the company.”

Jamie’s left hand reached back to rest on Claire’s hip. He bit back all the witty remarks his brain conjured up – about the captain’s lack of height, the fact that his horse was clearly getting ready to drop a shoe, and general statements about the rapaciousness of captains in the British army more generally. Today was not the right time or place. Not when he had only his weary body to protect his wife and daughter.

“You’ll help us gather the potatoes, then?” The captain set a hand on his sword, regarding Jamie. “I must say it’s been quite a while since I got my hands dirty.”

 _I doubt that_ , Claire bit back, drawing her cloak gently over Brianna’s tender face, shielding her.

“And you can regale us with the tale of how you ever managed to tame that wild English rose. And get a child off of her, too – I daresay _that_ must be some story.” Just a pace or two away from Jamie, he tried to peer around his shoulder to see what Claire was doing. “I can’t imagine the courtship. That one’s got claws and a sailor’s mouth – but a certain type of man would enjoy that.”

Jamie clenched his fist, willing himself to not rise to the man’s foul bait. Murtagh nudged his shoulder gently – grounding him.

“I’ll thank ye to keep yer eyes toward me, and away from my wife and child,” Jamie hissed.

Sighing, the captain met Jamie’s icy gaze, rolling his shoulders.

“Yes indeed, of course. Just that – you have no idea what an object of fascination you are in our regiment, Mr. Fraser. I appreciate the opportunity to get to know you better.”

The captain almost sounded sincere. It took everything Claire had to not whirl around and slap him.

Jamie’s voice was cool, but full of steel. “I’ll take you and yer men up to the field directly. Let me just see the women inside the house.”

The captain nodded and led his horse to the knot of soldiers, who had comfortably decamped in the far corner of the dooryard. Jamie warily watched the corporal materialize at the captain’s side, clutching two large-sized baskets.

“Claire,” Jamie hissed.

Quickly she buttoned her cloak, holding it fast with one hand and Brianna with the other.

“Take Brianna in the house,” he said quietly, eyes fixed on the soldiers. “Lock yerself, Jenny, and the bairns in our bedroom and for God’s sake dinna come out for anyone.”

Ian finally rounded the corner of the house, huffing on his mud-spattered wooden leg. Jenny made a small sound of relief.

“Go now, Jenny. Have Ian keep watch in the parlor. I’ll be along in a bit.”

“Jamie – ” Claire’s voice choked. He couldn’t leave like this – couldn’t go off with a band of English soldiers by himself. Her mind raced with worry -

He turned to meet her gaze, eyes wilder than she’d ever seen. He swallowed sharply. “Go, Claire. I ken what ye’re thinking, but I swear to you on Brianna’s head that I willna be parted from you today.”

He dropped her arm and purposefully strode toward the soldiers, taking one of their baskets.

Murtagh touched Claire’s shoulder. “I’ll mind him,” he said softly. “Damn fool that he is. Dinna fash yourself. I will bring him back to you and the wee lassie.”

Claire could only nod, throat full. Not bearing to watch any more, Jenny rested a hand at Claire’s back and swept her into the safety of the house.

Jamie had been all right of course – though that hadn’t prevented Claire from worrying herself almost sick, nestling a sleeping Brianna to her shoulder as she paced back and forth in the nook of their bedroom.

It seemed like half the day had passed by the time she saw him wearily return to the dooryard, side by side with his godfather. Jamie looked muddy, tired, but whole, and with no visible bloodstains. _Thank God_.

Gently setting Brianna in her cradle, she turned the key in the lock. Maggie and Young Jamie scampered out, tired of being cooped up in the room with their auntie and mother.

Jamie stepped on to the landing – running a hand over his namesake’s dark hair as the little boy darted down the stairs.

Seeing Claire framed in the doorway, his eyes softened – and his big body heaved a great sigh. He strode to her quickly, kissing her deeply.

Jenny quietly eased past them, making her own journey downstairs to Ian.

At length, Jamie withdrew. He took hold of Claire’s shoulders and shook her lightly.

“What the hell were ye thinking? Ye should never have said a word to them, Claire. I wanted to brain that captain wi’ my spade the entire time. He talked my ear off all about how bonny ye are and how lovely it was to find a bit of culture in the Highlands.” He swallowed. “Insinuated you’d enchanted me, because how else would ye have chosen me?”

“He wasn’t responding to Jenny – I thought I could – ”

“Claire.” He closed his eyes, exasperated and absolutely exhausted. “I ken it’s different between us – that I dinna customarily order ye what to do. But damn it, woman, I’m ordering ye to keep yer mouth shut when the soldiers come round.”

“Ordering me? What right do you have – ”

“What right?” he exclaimed. “I’ll tell ye. It’s bad enough that wee Fergus almost gave himself an apoplexy running to and from the tattie fields. But it’s worse when I run all the way to the house, sliding all around in the mud, and I hear nothing but Brianna greeting. Claire – ” his voice broke. “Claire I – I didna ken what was going on, only I knew that I needed to get to her, and protect her. And I wasna there wi’ you, or her, or Jenny.”

He rested his forehead against hers.

“I love your wit. I love your spirit. But Claire, please. Dinna frighten me like that again.”

She cupped his cheek and traced the shadows under his closed eyes.

“All right. But don’t _you_ frighten me like that again. I won’t have you going off with a patrol of English soldiers, who’d sooner hang or abduct you than take the give you the time of day.”

He grinned. “All right. But ye’ll be glad to know – the tatties we gave them were ones Ian and I found rotting in the ground this morning. Kicked a bit more dirt on them, they looked good as new.” He grinned. “There may be a few soldiers with gripes in their guts by nightfall.”

Claire tipped her chin up to his – and he kissed her for a long while.

Jolted back to the present by a cry from Brianna, she realized she’d been dozing against Jamie’s shoulder. “Jamie – ”

“It’s all right, _mo nighean donn_ ,” he whispered into the clouds of her hair. “Ye are always so lovely when ye sleep. But Brianna’s right – time to get up. We must make sure we’re presentable afore the priest arrives.”

 

 


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](http://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/152290790187/shifted-part-2-chapter-4)

_**Part 2: The Baptism** _

Chapter 4

* * *

Claire bent over the bureau that held Brianna’s clouts and smocks, wrestling with a very wriggly daughter.

“Come on, love – let’s get you out of this nasty nappie. You’ll thank me for it later.” One hand firmly held on Brianna’s middle, the other untied the soiled cloth and shifted it to the side, just as she slipped a fresh one underneath her daughter’s tiny bottom.

“Everything all right, Sassenach?” Jamie’s bootsteps approached, but Claire couldn’t turn to face him.

“She just doesn’t want to get dressed, is all – but I think I’ve figured it out.” With a small “ha” of triumph, Claire finished tying up the new clout and dropped the soiled one into the pail below the bureau. “Have you got it?”

“Aye – here.”

Claire gently lifted Brianna as Jamie slid the cloth onto the table, wrapping it around her legs and middle, keeping her arms free while swaddling her for warmth.

“There – what do you think?”

Claire settled a now-warm and cooing Brianna onto her shoulder. This was a daring thing they were doing – daring, and reckless, and dangerous. But it was important to Jamie – and her – and there had been no hesitation.

“I think I’m lucky to have the both of you. Shall we?”

—–

Murtagh shifted from foot to foot at the bottom of the stairs, itching in his trews, waiting for the parents and bairn to come down.

Baptism. He minded Jamie’s own – standing next to Brian and Ellen Fraser, the vow of honor he’d taken as Jamie’s godfather, knowing that the lad would be the only child he’d ever have the keeping of. Sure Jamie had had Brian’s presence up till his late teens – but he still needed a man’s guidance, sometimes – and Murtagh felt privileged to provide that guidance.

Guidance – and service, too. A good thing he’d convinced the priest to perform the baptism in the parlor of the house. Why make the trip all the way up to the kirk, in the dead of winter, when Jamie choked at the thought of Brianna spending even two minutes outside? And with things the way they were on the estate these days – food was quite lean in some of the crofts - the promise of supper in the big house had had the wee man agreeing on the spot.

He was in fact enjoying Mrs. Crook’s hospitality right now – sipping a restorative drink in the kitchen as Jenny and her family waited in the parlor.

It was unlike Jamie to keep the family waiting, though. Was there something wrong? Could the wee lass have taken ill? She seemed a braw little thing – and her mother protected her something fierce, to keep sickness away – but still…

At last he heard a door open upstairs and footsteps on the landing – Jamie’s long strides, and Claire’s quicker steps.

“Here, Sassenach – let me go first, aye?” Jamie’s voice drifted down the stairs, and soon Murtagh saw the tops of his boots.

Three more seconds – and the older man’s heart leapt to his throat.

At the foot of the stairs stood Jamie, Claire, and Brianna – each proudly wrapped in a Fraser tartan. Jamie in his kilt, plaid over one shoulder, waistcoat, dirk, and sword – Claire in a respectable dress with a shawl pinned around her shoulders for warmth – Brianna swaddled in a smaller length of plaid. Jamie met and held Murtagh’s gaze, defiantly tightening his arm around Claire.

“Are ye trying to kill me, man?” Murtagh croaked. “Or yer family? You know that if we’re visited –”

“Aye, I ken it well. But we’re here, in our home – and you know as well as I that the English won’t be by again afore Hogmanay.”

“Jamie – ”

“No. I willna stand before God, wi’ my daughter and wife, in a way that’s any different from what my mother and father would have done. So – let’s get on with it, hmm?”

Murtagh sighed, resigned. Jamie turned to Claire, kissed her cheek, and said quietly, “I’ll go get it sorted wi’ the priest. You wait here for a moment, aye?” He purposefully strode out of the room, and after a long moment Murtagh wearily turned to Claire.

“Why do I keep doing this?”

She smiled, shifting Brianna to her other shoulder. “Because you love him. God knows, I’ve asked myself the same question many times over.”

Jamie emerged from the next room, one arm extended to Claire. “Ready?”

She nodded and stepped forward. He settled a big hand snugly at the small of her back.

Murtagh’s thick brows furrowed. “Ye’re just as bad as him sometimes, ken?”

Claire laughed, kissing Brianna’s brow. “And now we’ve got this one, hmm?”

Murtagh closed his eyes and sighed. God help him, there were three of them now.

* * *

 


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](http://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/152594854130/shifted-part-3)

_**Part 3: The Dream** _

**Lallybroch, Spring 1753**

* * *

 

“This is what you get for thinking _The Odyssey_ is suitable bedtime reading.”

Claire sighed as Brianna’s head snuggled deeper into her chest, sniffing softly. One soothing hand stroked her daughter’s back as she glared at her husband, who had propped up on one elbow and wrapped his other arm around his women, holding them tight.

Jamie’s determined gaze met hers in the candlelight. “I dinna want her filling her heid wi’ only the Bible and fairy stories. She’s smart – she should learn the classics, and appreciate them.”

“She’s _six_ , Jamie.”

“I ken that. But she’s got such an imagination – I thought -”

“You should think again.”

He sighed. Brianna had uncharacteristically padded down the hallway from the room she shared with her cousins and pushed open her parents’ door – running directly to her father’s side of the bed, tears streaming down her face.

Jamie had bolted upright at the noise, quickly wrapping his arms around his daughter and lifting her to sit on his lap. “What is it, _a leannan_? What’s wrong?”

Brianna hiccupped, wrapping her tiny limbs around Jamie’s torso. She mumbled something into his shirt.

Jamie’s brow furrowed. “ _What_?” One big hand stroked her back, and he felt her nod furiously.

“Jamie?” Claire, now awake, sat up gingerly, carefully negotiating the bulge of a five-month pregnancy.

“It’s all right, Sassenach – wee Brianna had a bad dream.”

Jamie turned to face Claire – and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, nestling Brianna safely between them.

“Mama’s here, love,” she murmured, kissing her daughter’s red curls. “Do you want to tell us about it?”

Brianna’s face pulled away from Jamie’s shirt, blinking slowly. “It was the Cy-clops, Da. He was here.”

“The Cyclops? From _The Odyssey_?”

“Aye, he was here, and in the dooryard, and he was chasing me and Maggie and Katherine and Mrs. Crook, too.” She squirmed in Jamie’s lap and turned to face her mother. “He was going to eat us and some of Auntie Jenny’s lambs were there too and – ”

“ _Seas, a nighean_.” Jamie’s hand cupped Brianna’s small shoulder. “Stop now. Dinna get yerself all worked up again.”

Brianna sniffed. She shifted to curl herself around Claire’s belly. “I couldna let him get in the house, Mama. I couldna let him get you or Baby William.”

Claire’s palm met Jamie’s on Brianna’s back, squeezing his fingers. She swallowed. Brianna was so convinced that the baby was a boy – and she’d decided he would be named William, after the uncle she’d never known but seen every day in the portrait hanging over the stairs.

“Shh. I’m fine, the baby’s fine. Awake right now, thanks to you – but fine.” Claire slowly eased back onto the pillows, drawing Brianna down with her. Jamie followed, holding them tightly and stroking Brianna’s hair. Slowly, slowly they felt their daughter settle back in to sleep.

“I know it’s maybe not the best book in the world for her to learn, aye?” he said at length, voice low. “But Claire – she’s never been more than five miles from Lallybroch. She’s never seen the world as you and I have. And I dinna want her to think that this is all there is.”

Claire sighed. Jamie had long been frustrated with the terms of his pardon – he hadn’t left the estate in almost seven years. But it was a price he’d been more than willing to pay – well worth his wife and daughter’s safety.

“I know you only want what’s best for her. But do you remember when you were her age? How easy it was for you to believe anything?”

Jamie’s thumb traced the base of her neck. “That schoolmaster down in the village will never help her understand the world as I wish her to. So I must do it myself.”

She leaned toward him across Brianna’s peaceful dreaming face, kissing him gently.

“Shh. I know. She’s lucky to have a father who cares so much.”

He kissed her again, lightly. “I worry that one day, when she’s grown – she’ll think this is a dull place, she’ll no want to stay here. I – ” He exhaled. “I want her to live her life in the way she pleases, but Claire, if that means she wishes to part from us – ”

Claire butted her nose against Jamie’s and kissed him for a long while, silencing him.

When she finally pulled back, she drew her nose up along the side of his, kissing his closed eyes.

“She’s _six_ , Jamie. We have years and years until that may come to pass. And now with this other one – she’ll be such a wonderful sister. _That_ will be a motivation to stay.”

He nudged her chin with his, finding her lips again.

“I dinna wish her bad dreams – but it’s nice, the four of us together like this, aye?”

“You say that only because you don’t have one child kicking you on the inside and the other kicking you on the outside.”

She felt his smile against her lips.

“Ye’ve made me so happy, _mo nighean donn_. I dinna tell you often enough.”

Claire’s hand traced his jaw in the candlelight. “You don’t need to tell me, idiot. You show me every day.”

He hummed, and she delighted in the feel of it under her fingers.

“Jamie?”

“Hmm?”

“Maybe the fairy stories for a bit, all right?”

He sighed, settling his head directly next to hers on the pillow.

“All right then. But ye willna begrudge me if I share wi’ her a tale I’ve been thinking of on my own for a while?”

She rubbed her nose against his, intrigued.

“Tell me?”

He kissed her chin. “Ah well, it’s just a wee story about a beautiful brown-haired lass who fell through magic stones, ken? And somehow ended up 200 years in the past.”

Jamie’s hand slid to her side and drew her palm away from Brianna’s back. He tangled his fingers through hers, thumb tracing her iron ring.

“And?”

He smiled. “She missed her own people, and her own time. But her life was full of adventure – living in castles, sleeping in the heather, seeing waterhorses. She was a rare healer, too – with a kind touch, and a good knowledge of plants and herbs.”

Many times they’d lain together like this – in the deep of night, noses touching, limbs tangled or bodies still joined after the act of love – whispering to each other. The topics always changed – her time, his time. Brianna, Jenny, Ian, his parents – and even Faith. Recently, this new child. But always they discussed whether – and when, and how – to share Claire’s secret with Brianna. She had a right to know – but how much? And to what end?

Perhaps this was the best way to introduce her to the idea – after all, the best fairy stories are those with a bit of truth to them. And on the day when Claire and Jamie would tell their daughter the full truth – she’d be at least familiar with the idea.

She squeezed his fingers. “What about her knack for getting caught by enemy soldiers? Or sticking her nose in clan politics?”

His thumb caressed her knuckles. “Aye, she got into heaps of trouble along the way. Did I mention that she was English, but fell back in time to the Highlands? So she didna fully understand where she was, or why people thought of her the way they did.”

“Part fairy story, part morality tale. I think Brianna would like that.”

“I hope so. One more part, though – right after falling through the magic stones, this beautiful lass met a young lad whose shoulder was in need of mending. And after she patched him up, he was drawn to her – he knew she was a stranger in a strange land, and he swore an oath to protect her. And she needed protecting from the fairies and witches and waterhorses, though she didna ken it at the time.”

Her heartbeat quickened. He swallowed.

“He admired her spirit, her knowledge, her character. Her beauty. He always wanted to be wi’ her when she got into scrapes. And slowly the lad fell in love with her. But he didna say anything to her about it.”

“Why not?”

“Because she wasna ready – she wasna sure whether she wanted to stay, or go back through the stones, to her own time. He didna want to say anything, because he didna want to pressure her to do anything. But it tore the lad up inside, ken?”

Tears slipped out of Claire’s tired eyes. “I ken,” she said softly.

He kissed the tip of her nose. “Ah. And one day, the beautiful lass got into trouble again – but this time, she realized she needed the lad’s protection. And he gladly helped her. And then she realized that she loved the lad, too. And from that day forth, she wanted to live in the land of fairies and castles and waterhorses – not on the other side of the stones. She told him she loved him, and he was filled wi’ such joy.” His forehead met hers. “So they quickly got married – but it was still proper, though – in a kirk wi’ a priest, her wearing a nice dress, and wi’ witnesses, because that’s what she deserved. Then the lad swept her up on his horse and took her home with him.”

Claire sniffed. “Let me guess – and they lived happily ever after?”

Jamie’s thumb brushed away her tears. “Yes. It wasna easy – they didna always agree on things, because they came from different times, and she sometimes didna think she needed him to protect her. But they loved each other too much to stay mad for long. But they were – are – happy. So happy.”

Claire had no words – she could only kiss him, long and hard.

“I think she’ll like that story,” she whispered against his lips, several moments later.

He kissed the tip of her nose. “Ah well. I suppose I can fit in the Greek and Latin somewhere else then.”

 


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Originally posted on tumblr](http://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/152897516209/shifted-part-4-chapter-1)

_**Part 4: The Decision** _

Chapter 1

Lallybroch, Autumn 1752

* * *

“Shall we not even bother collecting the rents this quarter, then?”

Ian rubbed a hand over his tired face. “I’m no’ saying that, Jamie. Only – ye ken as well as I that many tenants won’t be able to pay in full.”

Jamie leaned his head back on the couch, whiskey tumbler in one hand, eyes closed. It had been a long day of going over the ledgers, counting and re-counting the estate’s bills. What with the lack of rain this summer and the latest levy placed on the land by the English, many crofters simply hadn’t been able to produce. Which meant that come harvest, they’d need much more of their grain for their own families. Times were hard enough – Jamie kent well that there was no point in taking food out of his tenants’ mouths.

It had rained nonstop today. Between the dim candlelight of the study he shared with Ian and all his thoughts trying to balance what to do, he had developed quite the headache. He had them now and again – a legacy of the ax-blow that had nearly killed him eight years before – but today’s was developing into something more potent than usual.

Claire could give him something to make it go away, of course – but she’d had her hands full with a rambunctious daughter today. Brianna was five – sweet as could be, but busy and inquisitive. And as stubborn as both of her parents. She never let her small size act as a barrier for anything she wanted to do – whether that was ride with her da on his periodic visits to the tenants, or “help” her mam gather plants and roots, or supervise Mrs. Crook in the kitchen. Brianna and her cousins had had to stay inside with the rain, and he felt bad for steering clear of the four small whirlwinds. Claire called it “cabin fever” – and he kent well the feelings of frustration that came with such restrictions.

Jamie sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, willing the headache away. “Aye, I know. We’ve got the wool from the sheep, and the beeswax candles – those we can always sell. We’ll live on the potatoes again this winter. And we’ll collect whatever we can tomorrow.”

Soft footsteps – a rustle of homespun – and the cushion beside him on the couch sank slightly. _Claire_. He reached out a hand and neatly found her palm, twining their fingers together.

“Headache again?” she asked softly.

“Mmphm.” He opened his eyes and met her concerned gaze. She squeezed his fingers. “Nothing ye can’t fix, Sassenach.” She smiled and shook her head.

Jamie’s thumb secretly traced the lines of Claire’s palm. Over Claire’s shoulder he watched Jenny ease through the doorway and sit beside Ian. In the eighth month of her fourth pregnancy, she was still able to move with the same grace as she always did. And in the light of the fire, with the half-darkness cast by shadows highlighting her features, Jamie thought his sister had never looked more serene. Watching Ian, he saw that his best friend agreed.

“We’ll collect what we can, then. We know we’ll be able to eat this winter, and we’ve got enough saved away for the spring planting.” Jamie raised his head from the back of the couch and took a restorative sip of whiskey. “How are we with the second cellar, then?”

For the past year, Jenny and Mrs. Crook had been slowly setting aside spare preserves, potatoes, dried fruits and meats, and other stores in a cave a half-mile behind the house. They’d started laying food away in the second cellar as a precaution – so that if the English patrols stepped up again and sought to take more food as payment, then at least the residents of the main house – including the growing brood of Fraser/Murray children – would have plenty to eat.

Jenny rested one ankle over the other and rubbed her belly. “Weel, all the food we’ve put away is keeping nicely. I was thinking we could put some of the dry goods in there as well – to keep them away from the house.”

“About that, _mo dhu_.” Ian rubbed one hand over the stump of his leg; Claire knew it pained him in the evenings. “We’ll need to sell more wool from your sheep. And all the candles ye can spare.”

“Is it that bad, then?” Jenny’s eyes darted between her husband and brother. “Are we no’ expecting much tomorrow? That’s three straight quarters now, Jamie.”

“I dinna ken what we’ll get, Jenny. We need to be prepared.” Jamie swallowed. “The damned English are bleeding us dry. And I ken it’s because of me – ”

Jenny drew her dark brows together. “Dinna say that. Times are tough for all the estates – ye ken that weel.”

Claire felt Jamie stiffen beside her. “Ye also ken that the patrols stop by here more often than anywhere else. They want to punish me. They mock who I was, and they want to take that out on my family. Jenny, I – ” He swallowed. “I’m too much of a liability. If I were to go somewhere, and they kent I was away, they wouldna be by here so often, and –”

“Are ye a fool, Jamie? Ye _do_ understand the terms of your pardon, am I right? Because if you set so much as one foot outside estate lands they’ll have you in a wagon on your way to meet the hangman.” Jenny rose from her seat, voice rising. “If ye think that I, or Ian, or God forbid Claire would let ye do that, Jamie – weel, ye dinna understand us at all.”

Ian gently laid a hand on Jenny’s arm. “Hush, _mo graidh_. Please sit. We’re all tired. He doesna mean it.”

Jenny sank back into her chair, glowering darkly at her brother. A tense silence engulfed the room for several moments, punctuated only by the crackling of the fire.

Unfocused thoughts darted through Claire’s mind. Jamie’s hand gripped her fingers, but she knew his mind was so very far away. Ian had done his best to diffuse the situation – now it was her turn.

“It will go on for several more years yet, Jamie,” Claire finally spoke softly. “But it won’t last forever. Things will indeed go back to normal – or as normal as could be expected.”

Jamie turned to her slowly, eyes unfocused. He had explained to Jenny and Ian that Claire had The Sight – or some form of it - but Claire had never directly referenced the future in their presence.

“Ye’ve seen it, then?” Ian asked quietly. “Do you ken how much longer it will last?”

She nodded, eyes trained on Jamie’s. “For eight years after Culloden. That means two more years yet. After that, the English will get preoccupied with politics and rebellions in other parts of the empire – and so they’ll gradually ease their grip on Scotland.”

Jamie set down his glass and quietly gathered Claire to his chest. “Of course the patrols won’t go away entirely,” she continued, side flush with Jamie’s. “But the weather will improve. And with more to give the English, the less they’ll be so…direct in their interaction with the Scots.”

Ian nodded, thoughtfully. “Aye, I suppose. I trust ye, Claire. Ye were right about the potatoes – they dinna get the same blight as the barley, and we’ll be living on them again for the next seasons. But only –”

“Do ye ken what will happen to _us_ , Claire?” Jenny’s voice was quiet, full of fire. “Or just to Scotland in general? Because I tell you, I do care about the country and our people and what’s happening to us, but at the end of the day it’s my family and estate I care about the most, and –”

“Jenny-” Ian laid a big hand on her arm. “I dinna think-”

“No, it’s a good question.” Claire rested a hand on Jamie’s thigh. “I don’t know what will happen to Lallybroch, just what the English will do in Scotland more generally. I wish I did know. But I can do something that I know for sure will have a direct impact, a direct positive impact.”

Jenny’s eyebrow raised skeptically. “And what’s that, then?”

Claire paused, considering her words carefully. “We can sell my gold ring. That should bring in more than enough to make up for what the tenants won’t be able to pay this quarter.”

Jamie rested one big hand over hers. “Claire, I canna ask ye to do that.”

She smiled into his worried eyes. “You’re not asking me – I’m offering. I’m happy to do it. It’s not doing anything now – I’d rather put it to good use.”

“Yer old wedding ring, ye mean?” The surprise in Jenny’s voice was plain – clearly this was not what she had expected.

Claire squeezed Jamie’s hand tightly. “My first husband, he – well, he’s not alive. I’ll never see him again. That part of my life is fully, truly behind me.” _Or ahead of me?_ She thought dimly.

“Claire.”

She lifted her eyes to meet Jenny’s across the room. “Ye’d do that, for us? Truly?”

Claire nodded. Jamie’s slowly caressed her right hand – with his ring – between his two work-roughened hands. “You are my family. This is my home. Jamie knows this, but Jenny – Lallybroch is the only true home I’ve ever had. You and Ian and Jamie and the children are the only true family I’ve ever had. You opened your home to me when you were under no obligation to do so.” She swallowed. “It’s the least I can do. The very least I can do.”

Jenny nodded, lips pursed. She turned to Ian. “I suppose ye can have a wee word wi’ someone about getting a fair price for it, then?”

He nodded and sipped his whiskey. “Aye. I’ll do it the day after next – after we see how much we collect tomorrow.”

Jamie had remained uncharacteristically silent, obviously deep in thought. Just as Claire turned to him he stood, and drew Claire up with him.

“I’ll be down early to read through the ledgers one more time, Ian,” he said, setting one hand on the small of Claire’s back and steering her out of the room. “All right?”

Ian raised one brow, but said nothing. “All right.”

Claire turned, trying to meet Jamie’s gaze, but he quickly pushed her out of the room. “Jamie-”

“Let’s collect the wee lass and spend the rest of the evening upstairs,” he said quietly. “I want – I need – I must be wi’ the two of ye right now.”

Claire frowned as they rounded the corner into the kitchen. “Jamie-”

Too late – their daughter had already caught sight of them, and shrieked with delight from behind Mrs. Crook’s skirts.

Jamie let go of Claire’s back and knelt, catching Brianna as she ran to him. He swept her into his arms, heedless of the jam and mud stains on her smock. “ _Ciamar a tha thu, mo nighean ruaidh?_ ” he said, voice smiling as she smacked loud kisses on his cheeks.

Claire sighed and met the housekeeper’s weary gaze. “Thank you, Mrs. Crook,” she said sincerely. “I would have been at a total loss with her today, had you not stepped in.”

The older woman smiled, wiping her hands on her threadbare apron. “Ah, it’s no bother, milady – there are always tasks for small hands. She’s a sure handful, but a true delight. Minds me of her da at that age.”

Claire glanced back at Jamie and Brianna. He had picked her up, arms securely around her little legs. Brianna was excitedly telling him all about her day in the _Gaidhlig_. Jamie nodded periodically, listening intently as if it was the most interesting thing in the world.

Claire’s heart raced. Seeing the two of them together, in moments like this, bringing such joy to each other – it was worth it. They were worth it.

 


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](http://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/153214331662/shifted-part-4-chapter-2)

_**Part 4: The Decision** _

Chapter 2

Lallybroch, Autumn 1752

* * *

 

She stepped over to the two of them and rested a gentle hand on Brianna’s back.

Startled out of her conversation and back into English, Brianna turned her eyes to meet Claire’s. “Mama! Mrs. Crook was just teaching me how to make the bannocks for breakfast!”

Claire wiped a dab of flour from Brianna’s cheek. “That’s wonderful, love. I’m sure she’s very happy to have had your help.”

Brianna nodded gravely, turning back to Jamie. “ _I got to have some honey when I was helping Mrs. Crook, but please dinna tell Mama_ ,” she whispered to him in the _Gaidhlig_.

“Too bad she understands every word ye’re saying, then,” he replied in English, and swung Brianna up to sit on his shoulders. With a final “good e’en” to Mrs. Crook, he steadied his giggling daughter with one hand, took Claire’s arm with the other, and led his women upstairs.

Brianna dug her small fingers into Jamie’s scalp as he climbed the stairs. “Is this what the world looks like for you, Da, when ye walk around?”

“Aye, I’m so far from the ground that it makes me a wee bit dizzy sometimes,” he said, voice smiling. “And there’s a fair bit of danger in it, too.”

“Danger? What kind of danger?”

At the top of the landing, Jamie held open their bedroom door for Claire, followed her inside, and bolted the door behind them. Without warning, he walked to the bed, turned around, and shrugged Brianna off his shoulders. She shrieked as she fell onto the feather mattress with a soft thump.

Jamie dropped onto the bed beside his daughter with a much louder thump. “Weel, if ye happen to fall down, Brianna – the danger is ye’ve a long way to fall.”

Jamie gently tickled Brianna’s sides, and she quickly squirmed out of his reach. “Mama! Help!” she gasped.

Smiling, Claire climbed onto the other side of the bed and gently laid a hand on Jamie’s shoulder. Between them, Brianna’s small chest heaved with excitement. “Again, Da!”

Jamie kicked off his boots and rested a big hand on Brianna’s back. “Not just now, _a nighean_. Tell me more about what ye did wi’ Mrs. Crook and your cousins today.”

Brianna snuggled into his chest as she told her parents about her adventures in the kitchen, dooryard, root cellar, parlor, and other parts of the house that always seemed so big to small children. Claire shifted closer and tried to meet Jamie’s gaze. But his eyes were firmly on Brianna’s, nodding to keep up with her quick words.

His sudden shift in mood was troubling – worrying. Was it his headache? The finances? Or her decision on the gold ring?

“-And then Jamie wanted Maggie to ride Luke, but I told him that it wasna a good idea because I’d tried to ride Luke last week and I fell off –”

This was news. “What? Where was this? Luke’s a dog, Brianna – they’re not mean to be ridden.”

Brianna shrugged. She flopped onto her back between her parents, slanted eyes meeting Claire’s. “But Mama, Da lets me ride his horse on my own, when we go to the cottages or the village, and he says I’m good at it – and a dog doesna need a saddle, ken, so I thought it would be easier, and –”

Claire raised an eyebrow at Jamie – and this time his gaze met hers. “I ken what ye’re thinking, Claire. She’s fine on the horse.”

“But –”

His brow furrowed. “Do ye really think I’d let anything happen to her, Claire? She’s fine.”

She sighed, not wanting to prolong the moment. Of course she knew Jamie would take care of Brianna – he’d been utterly devoted to her since before she was born. It was a good thing that Brianna was fearless, but Claire feared that her daughter’s fearlessness could quickly turn into foolhardiness.

“Mama?”

Claire smiled down at Brianna, smoothing back her red curls. “Yes, love?”

“How come you and Da never go on any trips, like Uncle Ian?”

“What do you mean?”

Brianna’s small brows drew together. “Uncle Ian took his trip wi’ Mr. MacManus, do ye remember? They were gone for weeks and weeks and Jamie told me today that when his da got back he had stories about the villages and cities he’d visited. And then Jamie asked me why you and Da don’t go on trips, and I didna ken why not.”

Ian had taken a trip to Inverness a few months back, to retrieve some books and dry goods and other things that the Fraser-Murrays needed from time to time. It was the longest one of them had ventured from the estate in three years – and Ian’s description of the beleaguered Highland villages he passed through had made Claire’s blood run cold. She knew that poverty and famine had run rampant through the Highlands since Culloden – and also knew that Lallybroch had been fortunate to have made it out relatively unscathed during this time. But knowing something in the abstract and seeing tears come to Ian’s eyes as he described his experiences were two different things altogether.

“Do ye want us to go on trips, _mo chridhe_? To go away from ye?”

Brianna rolled her eyes at her father. “No, Da – I dinna mean that. But you and Mama have told me so many great stories about Paris and London and Inverness and other cities, and I’ve never been to a city, ken?”

Jamie smiled sadly. Claire squeezed his arm.

“Do ye remember I’ve told ye about how I had to make a promise to stay at Lallybroch?”

Brianna nodded vigorously. “Because of the redcoats.”

“Aye. I had to promise the redcoats that I’d stay at Lallybroch, which means that yer Mam and I canna go with Uncle Ian to Inverness or on any other trips.”

“But why, Da? Why did ye have to promise them to stay here?”

Jamie gently kissed his daughter’s forehead. “I did it to keep you and yer Mam safe. The redcoats would have taken me away if I hadn’t promised them.”

Brianna suddenly buried her face in the front of Jamie’s shirt. She clutched at his arms. “Dinna go away, Da. They canna take ye away. I willna let them.”

Claire eased closer, wrapping her arms snugly around Brianna and resting her forehead against Jamie’s.

He sighed. “Dinna fash yerself, _mo nighean ruaidh_. They willna take me away, as long as I stay here with you and yer Mam.” He ran a gentle hand over Brianna’s small back, soothing. “I promise you, Brianna. Do ye hear me?”

She nodded against his chest. “I hear ye, Da.”

A long moment stretched between the three of them.

Jamie sighed and smiled. “Well then. Let’s get you changed for bed, aye? And how about a wee story?”

Brianna sat straight up with excitement. “Will ye tell me the one about Maisy and the cows that got stuck in the dooryard?”

Jamie edged up on his elbow and ruffled Brianna’s hair. “Aye, if ye like. Come now, my wee sunbeam. Kiss yer Mam goodnight.”


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](http://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/153515472290/shifted-part-4-chapter-3)

_**Part 4: The Decision** _

Chapter 3

Lallybroch, Autumn 1752

* * *

 

Claire took advantage of the momentary privacy to wash her face, brush her teeth, and change into her night rail. Her mind still rested on Jamie – his sudden change in behavior earlier, his unspoken neediness of her and Brianna. She brushed her hair in front of the mirror in the corner of their room, reflective.

Neither she nor Jamie had left Lallybroch since Brianna’s birth. There had been no need to – they were so busy with running the estate and the business of raising their daughter that she honestly hadn’t thought of it for a good while.

But now that she did think of it – her mind shifted to the time she’d spent in London, Paris, Inverness – both in her time and this one. It would be _odd_ to be surrounded by so many people again, to be amid the hustle and bustle of horses and carriages and carts and street vendors. Not to mention the street urchins, disease, prostitutes, and numerous other unsavory aspects of urban life.

Brianna had never seen any of that firsthand. For all she knew, cities were as foreign a place as the magic lands Jamie described in his fairy stories. And it startled Claire that she didn’t mind that Brianna hadn’t had that kind of exposure. She needed to be kept far away from all those things. But would she be better served to get experience with them, so that her curiosity wouldn’t come back to bite her one day?

Claire sighed, running her hairbrush through a particularly difficult tangle. Being a parent was so much more complicated than she’d anticipated. She wouldn’t trade anything about it for the world – but she never thought she’d be worrying so much.

The doorknob turned. Claire watched in the mirror as Jamie slipped through and turned the bolt. He rested his back against the door, not speaking.

A long moment passed. She continued brushing her hair, knowing he was watching her.

“Are you going to tell me what was eating at you earlier?”

She saw him look down at his hands. “Come here, Claire,” he said quietly.

She turned to face him. “What?”

His left hand balled into a fist, then released. “Come _here_ , Claire. Please.”

Claire set down her hairbrush and softly padded across the room. Jamie’s gaze remained trained on his hands – hands which grabbed hers tightly and twined their fingers together.

Slowly Jamie dropped his forehead to meet hers. Claire felt the tension vibrating off his body.

He breathed in deeply, then exhaled. Another deep breath, then another exhale.

“Jamie, love –”

“Claire, I –” He swallowed. “What ye said ye’d do – sell yer gold ring, Frank’s ring, for Lallybroch –”

His thumbs traced the veins and tendons on the back of her hands. “It’s yer last link to your time – to him. I ken that ye made yer choice at the stones, both times I took ye there – and ye chose me. I will never understand why ye chose me, Sassenach. And I ken ye intend to stay here wi’ me until I die. But until today, until you said that – ”

He swallowed. “I dinna understand myself. I ken ye’ve been mine, truly mine, since our first night back at Leoch, when I pledged my vow to ye. But now, I – I feel like all the parts of you now finally belong to me.”

Claire’s heart thundered in her chest. “All the parts of you have belonged to me for quite a while now, Jamie,” she whispered. “Why should it be any different?”

“Yes – and ye own even the parts beyond me, too – like Brianna. But do ye understand what I mean, Claire?”

She nodded against him. “I understand. But Jamie – that ring, it hasn’t been a part of me for a long time. You know that.”

He swallowed. “Aye, I ken that fine. But Claire – the thought just hit me, sitting beside ye on the settle downstairs. I didna know why, but it’s always felt to me that there was that one tiny piece of you that he still held. But now he doesn’t. It’s mine. Mine to keep, to cherish. And it overwhelmed me wi’ feeling. And then…then the next thought to my mind…”

His breathing picked up, his breath shallow. Claire nuzzled her nose with his, encouraging.

“The next thought to my mind was that I needed to – to prove that I possess all of you. To take ye, hard. To bruise yer thighs and hear all the bonny noises ye make when I lie wi’ you.” His left thumb pressed her iron ring into her finger, and his right hand slid to cup her hip. Gently he brought his pelvis flush with hers. “To smell myself on ye, Claire. To sit wi’ ye at breakfast tomorrow morning and know ye have no voice left because I took it from ye. To know that ye’ll have to wear a shawl tomorrow because your lovely collarbones are covered wi’ my marks.”

Claire’s lips parted, and she exhaled gently.

Gently Jamie thrust his hips into hers. “My wanting for ye never stops, ye ken that fine. But now, today – I want – I need – I must possess you, truly. And I want ye to possess me, too.”

Claire dug her free hand into his thick hair and pulled him down for a long, searing kiss.

“Yes,” she whispered.

He effortlessly picked her up, wrapped her legs around his hips, and stumbled over to their bed.

 


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](http://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/153817965242/shifted-part-4-chapter-4)

_**Part 4: The Decision** _

Chapter 4

Lallybroch, Autumn 1752

* * *

He clung to her tightly afterward, not willing to relinquish their connection just yet. Foreheads against each other on the pillow, she twined her legs tightly around his hips. He was still buried deep inside her. Her breathing had settled, but his had not.

“Relax, Jamie – please. Just let go. I’m here.” Claire swallowed against the fresh scratchiness in her throat.

His eyes burned into hers. “Claire. I do love ye so.”

She smiled wide and pushed a few loose strands of hair behind his ear. “I know, Jamie. I know.”

He turned his head to kiss her palm. “If I ask ye something, will ye promise not to be mad?”

“I did promise you honesty, remember.”

He pursed his lips. “Aye, ye did. Only – I was thinking. I want us to try for another child.”

Her brows knit. “I didn’t think we’d ever really stopped.”

“Weel. What I mean is, I truly want it now. I mind what I said to ye when ye carried Brianna – about how it wasna worth the risk. And I mind how hard it was for ye to bear her. To see you like that, Claire – ” He sank his face into the curve of her shoulder, and breathed deeply.

Her fingers massaged his scalp gently. “Shh.”

He took a long time to reply. “I dinna want her to be an only child,” he finally said, voice muffled. “I want her to have someone to gang up on Wee Jamie and Maggie and Katherine with. I dinna want her to be alone when we’re auld and gone.”

Jamie drew back and met her eyes. Gently one finger tapped the end of Claire’s nose.

“So.”

“So.”

“You want this soon, then?”

He kissed her hairline – slow, sucking kisses. “Oh, aye. Winter’s coming, ken – I’ll have less to do outside, which means I can spend more of my time inside.”

“Mmphm.”

He tilted her chin up to his. “And inside of you, _mo nighean donn_ ,” he said, voice low and full of promise.

Jamie kissed her then, all lips and teeth and tongue, and she shifted atop him, tender breasts squashed against his chest.

His hand cupped her belly below her navel, thumb stroking thoughtfully. Gently he pulled away from her lips. “Ye’re willing, then?” he whispered.

Claire smiled widely and smoothed his hair back from his face. Gently she began moving back and forth atop him, and felt him stiffen inside her. His eyes shut at the sudden sensation. She felt so powerful in that moment – that she could make this man feel so much, for her. He gasped.

“Yes. Yes, Jamie. Always, always yes.”

 


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](http://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/154118659491/shifted-part-4-chapter-5)

_**Part 4: The Decision** _

Chapter 5

Lallybroch, Autumn 1752

* * *

 

Ian got a fair sum for the gold ring. And with good timing, too – the rents collected had been just as low as Jamie had feared. The bag of coins Ian brought home had been just enough to plug the gap in the estate’s finances for the last quarter.

Claire set the basket of laundry on the bed and stood, rubbing at the small of her back. She’d seized a quiet moment to herself after checking on Brianna, who was dutifully mending holes in her cousins’ smocks in Jamie’s study. Brianna said that the light was better in there at this time of day – but Claire knew that Brianna chose that spot in order to feel closer to him.

Jamie had been gone for a week. Several tenant families living at the outmost border of the estate had not come to the house on the most recent Quarter Day – and it had taken this long for Jamie to set aside his other chores and go out to see them for himself. Claire and Jenny had been leery about him venturing so close to the place where the estate met lands held by others – and only relented when Murtagh pledged to go with him. Of course Claire still worried; she knew Jamie chafed at being confined to Lallybroch, and she just hoped that he wouldn’t do anything rash.

Claire opened a drawer in their shared dresser and gently laid Jamie’s clean and folded shirts next to her spare stockings. He hadn’t said how long he expected to be gone, and there was no way for him to send word about when he would be back. Murtagh hadn’t returned home alone – so until she saw further evidence with her own eyes, nothing else to do but the daily chores that were so vital to keep the estate running.

Gently, secretly, Claire lay a palm over her belly. Her monthly should have arrived on the day Jamie left – but it hadn’t. She was seven days late. And since Brianna’s birth she had never been more than a day late.

Could it be? Dare she get her hopes up?

Yes – she dared. Jamie would be beside himself with joy. She’d rather tell him, and risk it not coming to pass – just to see the light it would bring to his face.

Once they officially agreed to start trying for another child, they’d been insatiable for each other. Their appetite, sparked during those blissful days following their wedding nine years ago, had certainly not waned. Claire wondered whether they’d always felt so hungry for each other, or whether the goal to create new life had triggered even more desire.

Every time they made love now, they felt the weight of the act – the knowledge that this could be the time when new life would start between them, when his blood and bone would knit with hers again. His reverence for her – how he almost worshipped her with hands, lips, and words while their bodies were joined – summoned feelings of devotion and awe and such profound love from deep within her – feelings she never thought she could ever be capable of.

She’d noticed that in the past few weeks, every time he reached his peak – whether snug under the quilts in the quiet dark of their bedroom, hard and fast against the door of his study, slow and sweet tucked up against a haystack – he gasped something in the _Gaidhlig_ against her lips. He usually lost all command of English when profoundly moved – and at first she thought he’d been trying to tell her something, though she was not quite sure what it was.

But soon she realized that he’d been whispering the same few words, again and again. One of the _Gaidhlig_ words was unfamiliar to her. Only after quietly asking Jenny of its meaning did she realize what he’d been whispering – and an intense feeling of love almost stopped her heart.

_Most blessed Virgin, by your grace may my wife conceive a child.  
_

In this time, with no physicians specializing in reproductive medicine, prayer was all that Jamie could do to aid in conception. And he used this prayer, so elegant yet heartbreaking in its simplicity, to bless their joining, to transform their love for each other almost into a sacrament.

Claire shut the drawer gently and turned, leaning back against the chest. Jamie had been right, in the glade, all those years ago. Their marriage was a sacrament - truly a gift from heaven. They drew all their strength and power from their union, and from each other.

And God would bless them, in time.

“I do hope you’re there,” she said softly, fingers rubbing over her belly. “My wee miracle. I love you so much already.”


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](http://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/154420144633/shifted-part-4-chapter-6)

_**Part 4: The Decision** _

Chapter 6

Lallybroch, Autumn 1752

* * *

 

Jamie sighed as he and Murtagh crested the final hill before the big house. Ten days since he’d left – ten days away from Claire and Brianna. It was time well spent with several tenant families who rarely made it to the house for Quarter Day; he’d lent the service of his hands to help them prepare for winter, tuck away the remainder of their harvest, and mend tools. And have many honest conversations with them about their obligations as tenants – both to the estate and to Jamie personally.

Every night as he slept by the fire, wrapped in a grubby blanket and wedged against his godfather, he’d dreamed of Claire heavy with child. He’d been so fascinated with the changes in her body while she carried Brianna – and remembered how he’d almost drowned himself in her during that time, to forget the pain and heartache of the days immediately following Culloden. He’d felt like such a man then – such a man that could get his extraordinary wife with child, and then watch her body grow to accommodate it.

He didn’t feel as much of a man now – now that they’d been trying in earnest for another child. She’d told him that in her own time, there were specialized physicians whom one could consult if there were difficulties in conceiving a child. These physicians could tell whether it was the man or woman who was the primary cause of the problem.

Jamie refused to believe that it was Claire whose body could not conceive a child. It had to be him – had to be his seed. Though he did wonder whether their bodies were somehow…incompatible, given that they came from different times. Of course that could not be fully true – Brianna was living proof of that – but it did strike him as odd that Claire had not conceived again since Brianna’s birth.

He’d broached the subject with Ian about a week before his departure. They’d been walking the potato fields, surveying the soil and noting which plots to harvest before the ground got too frozen. A safe enough distance from the house – and his wife and sister.

“Ian, _a charaid_?”

Ian kept writing in the small ledger, not looking up at his brother-in-law. “Hmm? You think this vine is too small to harvest?”

Jamie swallowed and looked down at his muddy boots. “I’ve a question to ask ye, and I trust you to keep it between us.”

That got his attention. Ian’s dark brows shot up. “Oh, aye?” he said softly, skeptically. “What is it, then? Did you get stopped by the English again, when ye were out on your own? I canna cover for you, not after the last time Claire found out.”

Jamie shrugged. “No, it’s not that. Only – it’s to do wi’ bairns. And Claire.”

“What about it? Ye’ve already got the one bairn – and I ken weel that Claire’s her mother. Ye havena –”

“ _No_ , Ian,” Jamie interrupted. “Dinna even think that way. Claire is it for me – always has been, always will be.”

Ian shifted his weight, digging his peg deeper into the ground. “What is it then, man?”

Jamie licked his lips. “You and Jenny – ye’ve got the four bairns now. All about two years apart from each other.”

“Aye?” Ian’s voice was patient, though he clearly had no idea where this conversation was going.

“And ye’ll notice that Claire and I have only the one.”

“I did notice. So?”

Jamie rubbed a hand over his eyes. “So. Did you and Jenny ever have to really…to really _try_ for the bairns? Or did it just… _happen_?”

Ian hobbled over to Jamie and touched his elbow, lightly. “Is that what’s been eating at ye these past weeks, then?”

Jamie swallowed. “Ye’ll ken it’s different between Claire and I. She comes from a place where women decide with their husbands when to have bairns, and I’ve respected her wishes for as long as we’ve been wed. We’ve – we’ve decided to have another bairn now. I want it, she wants it. Brianna would want it.” He sighed. “I dinna know how long we’ll have to be trying. Both times before it just – happened.”

“Both times?”

Jamie’s fist clenched, hard. He raised his head to meet Ian’s kind gaze. “I’ve never told ye – never told Jenny, even. When Claire and I were in France, after she rescued me from Randall – she was wi’ child.”

Ian’s eyes widened. “She was?”

Jamie pressed his lips together. “Aye, she was. We found out when I was recovering in the abbey – and I canna tell ye how much joy it brought us. How it brought us back to each other.” He sighed, hard. “But Claire had a very rough time of it, wi’ the bairn. And I did something verra foolish in Paris – gave her a great fright. Between that and how fragile she was – she lost the baby.”

Ian dropped the ledger to the ground and gathered his closest friend into a bear hug. Jamie clung to him, desperately trying to keep a hold on his emotions.

“Hush. Hush, _a ruaidh_.”

Jamie took several shallow breaths. “Claire gave birth to her, though she was stillborn. We had a daughter. Our first daughter. I never saw her, Ian. I never saw my firstborn child wi’ my own eyes.”

Ian drew back and held Jamie by the shoulders. “Surely ye canna blame yerself for that, Jamie? These things happen wi’ bairns sometimes.”

Jamie nodded. “Aye, I ken that now. And having Brianna wi’ me every day – I rarely think of that time anymore – rarely think of Faith anymore.”

“And still ye want to have another child.”

“Aye, I do. We do. Only – we never had to really try for it before. And now that we _are_ trying, I dinna ken how long we need to. How long are we supposed to try for, then? How long until I know whether it’s working?”

Ian sighed. “Ye think I know, man?”

Jamie shrugged. “I had a word wi’ Grannie MacNab about it the last time I was up at their croft. She told me which herbs to take that would make my – make my seed stronger.”

“And have ye done it, then? Does Claire know?”

“Aye, I have – and of course Claire doesna know. A mouthful of greens every morning, and a rosary every night. What else can I do?”

Ian bent to retrieve his ledger, and dusted it off gently. “I think ye’re doing just fine, Jamie. Ye canna do anything else – just keep loving yer wife, and leave the rest to God.”

Murtagh brought his horse alongside Jamie and nudged his knee. “Wake up, lad. Can ye not see yer wee lassie yelling and waving in the dooryard?”

Sure enough, Brianna was waving and shouting, and the dogs were barking with her. The setting sunbeams lit her hair like fire. Jamie spurred his horse to a gallop, smiling widely in the horse’s final strides to the house.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](http://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/155022191169/shifted-part-4-chapter-7)

_**Part 4: The Decision** _

Chapter 7

Lallybroch, Autumn 1752

* * *

He tasted Claire all throughout supper. She’d hurried into the dooryard, summoned by Brianna’s shouts, and emerged through the door in time for Jamie to gallop through the gate, bring his horse to a sudden halt, and tumble out of the saddle – eyes fixed firmly on her.

No words in greeting – just a pause to soak in her face, thumb tracing the curve of her cheek – and then his mouth was on hers.

Home.

She tasted different than he remembered. Was she always this sweet after so long away from each other?

He pulled away only when Brianna jumped on his back. He turned and gathered her up into his arms, kissing her forehead. Claire’s hand settled on his chest, and he felt warm all the way through his vest and coat.

“Were ye good for yer mam, then, _mo nighean ruaidh_?”

Brianna snuggled into him, nodding furiously. “Why were ye gone for so long, Da?”

He locked eyes with Claire over Brianna’s head. She smiled widely at him. His heart stuttered. _Has she always been this beautiful?_

“It doesna matter now, lass. I’m home.”

Between supper and greeting his sister and passel of nieces and nephews and then putting a very excited Brianna to bed, he hadn’t even had a chance to speak with Claire since he’d returned.

He gently kissed his daughter’s brow, tucked the quilt around her tiny shoulders, and slipped out of the room she shared with her cousins.

Quickly, quietly he padded down the hall and slipped into his bedroom, gently closing and bolting the door behind him.

Claire was in bed, reading by the light of a single candle. She was naked, and her bonny white shoulders glowed softly in the candlelight. She glanced up at his footsteps, smiled, set aside the book, and extended a long, graceful arm to him.

Quickly, gracelessly, he slipped out of his vest, shirt, boots, and trews. He approached the bed and turned down his side of the quilt.

And frowned in confusion.

A Fraser tartan lay neatly folded under the thick sheets. Jamie’s brows knit and he looked up at his wife.

“What’s this, Claire? I dinna understand.”

She shifted across the mattress and gently picked up the fabric, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. “Do you remember the last time we wore this?”

He frowned. “Aye – when Brianna was baptized. I ken ye mind it as well as I do – we nearly gave Murtagh an apoplexy.”

She nodded, face strangely impassive. Clearly she was waiting for something.

“And?”

“And what? Do ye want me to wear it, now that it’s gotten colder out? That’s still illegal, Sassenach.”

She smiled and gently wrapped the plaid around her shoulders. “No, love. Think. Every time something important has happened between us, we’ve shared your plaid. The night I met you. Our wedding night, when you gave me your mother’s pearls. The night we learned about Brianna. The night she was born, and the day she was baptized.”

Her eyes smiled into his. “What could be next on that list?”  

His brow furrowed – but she could tell the exact moment when it clicked.

Jamie’s heart stopped. He dropped to his knees. “Truly, Claire?” he croaked.

She ruffled his hair gently, resting her palm on her still-flat belly. “I missed my monthly.”

“Ten days late,” he breathed.

“Yes.”

“Ye havena bled in thirty-nine days.”

She nodded.

Overcome, he buried his face in her belly and breathed deeply. Then, so gently, he pulled back and kissed right below her navel.

“ _Tang Dhia_ ,” he whispered, kissing her belly again.

After a long moment he crawled onto the bed and gathered Claire in his arms. He framed her face between his hands, tears streaming down his cheeks.

Gently Claire wrapped the plaid around his shoulders, cocooning them. She slid her legs around his hips, her belly flush with his. Cradling the new life safely between them.

His thumb brushed a tear away from her cheek. He kissed her forehead.

“I love you,” he whispered, heart full.

She sighed, so incredibly happy.

“I love you.”

 


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](http://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/155343529276/shifted-part-5-chapter-1)

_**Part 5 - The Siblings** _

**Lallybroch, Summer 1755** _**  
** _

_**Chapter 1** _

* * *

 

For the entirety of his short life, William James Murtagh Beauchamp MacKenzie Fraser had been the exact opposite of his elder sister.

William had arrived three weeks early – Brianna was born two weeks late. Claire had labored for 13 hours to bring Brianna into the world – her labor with William had been so short that Jamie, who was up tilling the potato fields when her water broke, had almost missed his son’s birth. Brianna favored her father in height, build, complexion, and hair color; William was almost a carbon copy of Claire – fine features, dark curly hair, slim limbs even at the age of two. Where Brianna was brash, inquisitive, and outgoing, William was quiet, thoughtful, and almost painfully shy.

Watching her two children interact – which itself was a precious gift she honestly never thought she’d see – Claire had always assumed that it would be Brianna she’d worry more about. She had clearly inherited Jamie’s knack for getting into scrapes, as well as his talent for talking herself out of any sticky situation. William, on the other hand – he clearly adored his sister, but was much more patient with others and with his circumstances. Jamie had those traits as well – but they seemed to be much more magnified in William.

Which was why Claire had been so surprised when her little boy came inside for supper, irritable and irascible beyond anything she’d ever seen in him before. Swept inside by Brianna, he’d snapped at her when she’d guided him to the basin to wash. He’d pulled his hand out of her grasp and proceeded to shove at his much larger cousins Jamie and Katherine. The young Murrays in turn had shoved right back.

Claire had been minding a bubbling pot over the fire – boiling down the latest batch of willow bark into a strongly concentrated tea – when she heard her son shout “No!” at the top of his tiny lungs. Surprised, she caught the tail end of the commotion between William and Jamie – and strode sharply across the kitchen.

She gently pushed Jamie and Katherine away from William and crouched down to her son’s level. “William Fraser – you can’t treat your cousins like that.”

His blue eyes glistened with tears. “Mama – ”

Claire’s heart softened. “It’s all right, love. You must wait your turn at the basin. Here – ” she grasped William’s tiny wrist and recoiled.

His skin burned with heat.

“William? Are you feeling all right?”

His glassy eyes stared back at hers, suddenly confused. “Mama?”

Quickly Claire scooped her son up in her arms. “Mama’s here, love.” She felt him go boneless against her shoulder – one flaming cheek resting against her collarbone.

“Mama?” Brianna’s wet hands tugged on her skirts, eyes full with worry. “What’s wrong?”

“Has he not been like himself today?”

Brianna nodded. “Oh, aye. He was really quiet and then when we asked him to play wi’ us, he didna want to, just sat on the steps.”

Claire ruffled her daughter’s red curls. “All right. Finish washing up for supper. Can you tell your aunt that I’ve gone upstairs with William?”

Brianna’s eyes widened. “I canna go into the dining room, Mama! Only adults can go in there at suppertime!”

Claire sighed, holding William tighter. He whimpered, and her heart clenched. “Listen to me, Brianna. I need you to go find your Aunt Jenny and let her know that your brother is sick. Can you do that?”

Brianna straightened. “Yes, Mama.”

“Go, then. Don’t worry about William – I’ll take care of him.”

Brianna skeptically nodded, but darted out of the kitchen to find Jenny.

William shifted against Claire’s shoulder. “Come on then, love. Let’s get you a bit more comfortable.”


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](http://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/155671073478/shifted-part-5-chapter-2)

_**Part 5 - The Siblings** _

**Lallybroch, Summer 1755** _**  
** _

_**Chapter 2** _

* * *

 

“Shh, shh. Mama’s here.”

William’s small body looked lost in the center of his parents’ bed. He restlessly turned back and forth, trying to get comfortable.

Claire had stripped William down to a clout and placed a cool rag on his forehead. His body was absolutely burning up with fever, and his mind was so confused with the alternating feelings of the heat of the fever and the ice cold chills. She gently ran a palm over his wee belly and up over his shoulders, up and back again, soothing.

“Settle down, William. Stop moving.”

She felt him draw several deep breaths. “Mama – ”

Claire curled up next to him in the middle of the large bed. Blindly he shifted closer, face rooting against her chest as he had when he was a baby. She removed the cold cloth, gathered him in her arms, and pressed his warm face into her neck. “Shh. Just sleep now. Shh.”

Footsteps on the landing - Claire glanced up to find Jamie frozen in the doorframe, eyes wide with worry. She tilted her head to indicate he should come in. Heedless of the dirt and hay sticking to his trews, he climbed onto the bed and wrapped his arms around William and Claire, pressing a kiss to his son’s head.

“Da?”

William’s voice was muffled against Claire’s neck – but they both felt him relax.

“Aye, I’m here now, _a bhailach_. Rest now. Nothing will harm ye.”

William sighed and settled closer against Claire.

Claire met Jamie’s worried gaze. “It’s a fever,” she whispered.  

He swallowed. “He was fine this morning, Claire – he wasna so warm when I helped him dress.”

“Brianna said he’d not been feeling himself – it probably got worse as the day went on.” She rubbed a soothing hand up and down William’s tender back. “Our little lad needs some good rest, is all. He’s just confused – he’s never really been sick before.”

Jamie nodded, eyes far away.

“How did you know we were up here?”

He traced one thumb along the back of her neck. “Brianna came tearing into my study. She’s all upset – thinks it’s her fault that her brother’s ill.”

Claire smiled. Since the first time a newborn William had been placed in his sister’s arms, Brianna had seen it as her mission to safeguard and protect him, to guide him through life.

“She’s a good sister.”

Jamie returned her smile. “Aye. Minds me of my own sister and me, when we were bairns.”

Claire shifted her gaze down to William, who had settled into sleep. Gently she eased him back onto the pillows and covered him with her shawl.

“Do you think I baby him too much, Jamie?”

Jamie sat against the headboard, careful to not jostle the mattress.

“No. He’s still a baby in so many ways. The youngest in the house – for now, anyway. And he’s got his mam and sister and aunt and cousins and Mrs. Crook to mother him.” Gently he trailed a finger along William’s brow – Claire remembered how he had done that so often when William was a baby, tracing and memorizing his features.

“He’ll not be soft, if that’s what ye’re asking.”

“I know that. Only – I’m thirty-eight, Jamie. Even if we wanted to, I don’t know if I could have more children. The chances of conceiving get lower and lower as a woman approaches forty.” She sighed and absently traced the stitching on the quilt, eyes downcast. “I so wanted to give you a houseful of children. Like Jenny has given Ian – sons and daughters and more sons and more daughters. Not that I’m not grateful – I feel so blessed with Brianna and William. But I do feel that bit sad that I’ll likely never carry a child again – never nurse one again – never give birth again.”

Jamie reached over William’s small body and rested his hand atop hers on the quilt. “So ye want to keep him small for as long as ye can, then?”

She nodded, throat full. “He’ll always be my baby, Jamie. I just don’t want my feelings to – to make him think less of himself, or to think he can’t do things for himself.”

He tilted up her chin and met her gaze. “He won’t. Ye ken that Brianna and I will make sure of it.”

Claire bit her lip, eyes swimming with tears. “I worry about him so much. It’s so difficult and dangerous to be a man in this time. So many things can happen – raids, wars, sickness. I know you and Murtagh will teach him to fight. He’s left-handed, like you – have you realized that?”

“Aye, I have. Puir lad. Looks like he inherited something from me after all.”

Claire sniffed, but Jamie’s joke had worked – she smiled softly. “What are you talking about? He’s inherited a lot from you.”

Jamie snorted. “He’s your spitting image, Sassenach – your eyes, your limbs, your hair. When I take him and Brianna out to the tenants, they sometimes think he’s Jenny’s.”

“Well there’s no doubt who Brianna belongs to, at least.”

He smiled. “God bless the puir lass. I think the angels saw fit to send her a wee brother to protect – otherwise God knows the trouble she’d get in to.”

William shifted in his sleep, and gently Jamie drew Claire’s shawl tighter around his son’s tiny shoulders.

“When he’s big enough, I want to show him how to put on a kilt and wear a plaid.” Claire raised one eyebrow, and Jamie shrugged. “Dinna worry - we’ll do it in this room, ken – and lock the door, and I know he’ll understand why we canna tell anyone. But I’ll do it, and do it as often as it takes for him to do it on his own. I mind my own Da teaching me, when I was Brianna’s age.”

He paused, thoughtful. “My brother William and my son William will never be the lairds they should have been. I willna ever regret deeding the estate to Young Jamie – it’s saved Lallybroch. But Claire – ” He swallowed. “My son willna be the laird of this estate. He willna ever have an opportunity to wear his Fraser plaid. He willna be able to foster with his father’s kin, or attend a Gathering.”

Claire turned her hand on the quilt to be palm to palm with Jamie’s. She twined their fingers together.

“I try not to think about it, it pains me so much. Only – I think I understand a bit more about how you must feel here, in this time.”

“What do you mean?”

“You left your own time – your husband, your country, your place. Now I feel that in my time, my country, my culture, my place is gone.” He gently ran his thumb over her ring. “I dinna want William to feel he has no place.”

“Don’t say that. He’ll _always_ have a place. He’ll always know what that place is, Jamie. Brianna and I will make sure of it, even if you won’t.”

He smiled wistfully, twining their fingers together on the quilt.

“What does Murtagh think?”

Jamie snorted. “He says I must get my heid out of my arse and appreciate the gifts God has given me – you and the bairns. And that if I focus on the three of you, I’ll be too busy worrying about how to be a good husband and father that I’ll forget all the other nonsense.”

Claire smiled. “He really is a good godfather.”

Jamie shifted closer to Claire on the bed. “He loves us all – you too – though he’d rather die than admit it. We’re the only family he’s got left, ken?”

The door opened slightly to reveal Brianna’s worried face. “Da? Mama?”

Jamie turned to smile at his daughter. “Aye, he’s all right, _a nighean_. Come here.”

Quietly Brianna padded over to the bed and eased onto the mattress beside her father. William dozed softly, tiny chest rising and falling rapidly.

“I’m sorry, Mama. I’m sorry I didn’t take better care of him.”

Jamie picked up his daughter and rested her in his lap. “It’s no yer fault. There’s nothing you should have done differently, Brianna. Wee bairns get sick all the time. Ask yer mother.”

Claire smiled, heart swelling at the love she felt. “There was a time or two when you were small that you got sick, too.”

Brianna’s brows rose skeptically. “Really?”

Jamie pressed a kiss to the crown of his daughter’s head. “Aye, ye did. Scared me near to death, too.”

“But why, Da? Mama says it happens all the time.” She lay her head against his chest, limbs relaxing.

“It doesna matter that it happens all the time to wee bairns. It _does_ matter when it’s one of _my_ bairns that get sick.”

He craned his neck to meet Brianna’s eyes, and cupped her cheek gently.

“Ye know how much yer Mam and I love you and William, aye?”

Brianna nodded. “Aye, Da.”

“Well then. Just think how much ye felt today about William being ill, and multiply that by as large a number as ye can.” He paused, watching Brianna’s eyes lose focus as she followed along. “So think on that – and that’s only a wee bit of how I feel when one of you get sick.”

Brianna’s eyes widened. “That’s a lot.”

Jamie bumped her nose with the tip of his finger. “Aye, ‘tis. Do ye understand now?”

“Yes. I understand.” She turned her gaze to William. “Will he be better tomorrow, Mama?”

“I don’t know, darling. He just needs to rest now. And even if he’s better tomorrow, he’ll stay in bed. I don’t want him wearing himself out trying to keep up with you.”

Brianna gently eased off Jamie’s lap and crawled across the bed to William. She gently kissed his forehead and whispered something softly into his ear.

Claire turned to Jamie and reached for his hand. He took it, twined their fingers together. Their hearts were full.


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](http://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/155991295940/shifted-part-6-chapter-1)

_**Part 6 - The Honeymoon** _

**Lallybroch, Summer 1763** _**  
** _

_**Chapter 1** _

* * *

__

“I think I’ll take William out to Grannie MacNab’s today.”

Claire’s thumb idly brushed the springy hairs in the hollow of Jamie’s chest. With the first light of dawn now seeping through the window, she could just barely see his features on the other side of the pillow.

“Why? She’s got at least three dozen grandsons of her own. Surely one of them can help with whatever you’d like William to do.”

Jamie’s hand met hers and brought her ring to his lips for a kiss. His other arm nestled her closer into his side.

“Ah, weel. He needs to learn that sometimes we do things to help others - even though we ken well that we’re perhaps no’ the first choice to provide that help. And it’ll give me some good time wi’ the wee lad away from the house.”

“Anything in particular you need to discuss?” William had always been their quieter child. He preferred to assess a situation before thoughtfully reacting to it – completely the opposite of his sister. Many a time in her sixteen years had Brianna needed to provide an apology – which she delivered only because her father threatened to skelp her if she didn’t - to her cousins or the servants for her sharply-worded reactions.

“No, I suppose not. Only, I want him to know he can always talk to me, about anything, ken? He’s no’ a wee boy anymore, Claire.”

She buried her nose in the hollow of Jamie’s shoulder. “I ken that,” she said softly.

He sighed. “I want to raise William as if he were the laird. A laird doesna care what his tenants need – he sees to it, even if they’ve got a passel of grandsons to help out. A laird lives by example, so that his tenants will change their own behavior to act as he does. And a laird learns how to be a laird by listening to his father, and learning from his mistakes.”

“Sounds like you’re doing all of that with William already.”

He kissed her forehead. “I’m trying to. The lad is bonny smart, and he has verra good things to say, only he’s drowned out sometimes by all the women in the house.”

She smiled into his neck. “It’s always felt easier with Brianna. She’s so much like the two of us that we know exactly what she’s thinking or feeling.”

“Aye. Wee William, though – he’s the one keeping us on our toes, Sassenach.”

She eased one leg over his hip and effortlessly slid atop him. The sheet rode down her back, exposing her shoulders to the warm June air.

“You’re such a good father to them, Jamie.” Bending, she kissed him deeply.

He hummed and smiled into their kiss.

“I didna think ye’d find fatherhood so erotic, Sassenach,” he teased, gently thrusting his pelvis against hers.

“Mmphm.” She kissed his chin. “You are passionate in all things, my laird. As am I.”

“Mmphm. I did figure that one out rather quickly,” he whispered against her lips.

A thin sunbeam pierced through the window and landed on the crown of Claire’s head. Fascinated, Jamie reached a big finger to trace it along her hairline.

Claire, preoccupied with more important things, grasped Jamie under the blankets and gently eased him inside of her.

They both gasped. Claire started moving atop him, but Jamie gently pushed against her shoulder, stilling her.

“Jamie –” she groaned.

“Ye’ve got some grey hairs, right here,” he said softly.

Claire closed her eyes, suddenly feeling incredibly self-conscious. She moved to roll off him, but he held her shoulders tightly.

“Dinna do that. Lord knows I want ye more right now, in this moment, than I ever have in my life.”

He framed her face in his hands, cradling her cheeks. “You are beautiful. You have always been so beautiful to me, _mo nighean donn_. And that willna ever change. Ye must know that.”

“I’m forty-six, Jamie. I’m a mother in middle age.”

She refused to meet his eyes. Pain surged in his heart.

He shook his head. “Ye’re my bride of nineteen years. Yer body has created three miracles. Ye have made unimaginable sacrifices because ye love me, and love our bairns.” He butted his nose against hers. “I find yer motherhood erotic,” he whispered. “I find yer love and devotion and commitment erotic. It doesna matter how old ye are, or will be – my feelings for you will remain the same, Claire.”

Gently he thrust his hips against hers. Then again, and again. Their lips parted against each other, gasping, sharing breath.

She opened her eyes and lost herself in him.


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](http://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/156309277290/shifted-part-6-chapter-2)

_**Part 6 - The Honeymoon** _

**Lallybroch, Summer 1763** _**  
** _

_**Chapter 2** _

* * *

 

“Be good for your father,” Claire whispered in William’s ear right before he mounted his horse. “Do you have your medicine kit? I packed two extra pairs of socks and some apples in your rucksack. And because I always know you forget to –”

“I’ll be fine, Mama,” William sighed. He loved his mother, he really did, but she was just so _worrit_ all the time. He’d be a grown man soon – and he could take care of himself just fine. Da knew that, and understood that.

Claire sighed and kissed her son’s cheek. “Watch out for your father, then. Don’t let him do anything to wrench out his back again.”

William climbed the stirrups and settled on his horse. “Aye, I will. Dinna fash, Mama – I’ll take care of him.”

William checked the straps in the horse’s bridle, watching his parents make their own goodbyes out of the corner of his eye. He saw his father touch his mother’s cheek softly, murmur something in her ear, and then kiss her deeply – in front of all his cousins and the servants.

He and Brianna discussed it from time to time – just how much in love their parents were with each other. Aged sixteen, Brianna thought it romantic; aged ten, William thought it odd. They knew that their parents’ marriage – similar to that of their aunt and uncle – was different than most, especially when he overheard talk by his classmates in the village school. 

For one thing, his mother was the unreserved equal of his father – they made all decisions together, and he never made any decision without first consulting her. Second, Da had no problems with Mama doing her own work healing people – even if that work caused her to take trips to the far-off crofts or other areas of the estate where people needed doctoring. Mama was a rare fine healer, and Da not only understood that – he respected it. He’d told his children that part of the reason for that was because he had first met Mama when she’d patched him up after a battle – and that her spirit and independence was what he loved the most about her.

Third, his parents acted at times like the lads and lasses who giggled at each other and sneaked behind haystacks during the gatherings after the spring planting and autumn harvest. Mama and Da were always touching each other – his hand on her back, her hand on his arm, his arm around her shoulders even at the supper table. And he minded how, a few weeks ago, Brianna had told him she’d risen early one morning and gone to their parents’ room down the hall to speak with Da – only to hear noises coming through the door that clearly indicated that while their parents were awake, they certainly weren’t ready for any kind of conversation.

“Are ye ready, William?”

Startled, he turned to his right to see his Da mounted on a horse and settled in the saddle.

“Aye, I’m ready.”

With a final nod to Claire, the Fraser men eased their mounts into a trot and clopped out of the dooryard.


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](http://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/156625269078/shifted-part-6-chapter-3)

_**Part 6 - The Honeymoon** _

**Lallybroch, Summer 1763** _**  
** _

_**Chapter 3** _

* * *

 

“Let’s rest the horses for a wee bit, William. The heat isna good for them.”

“Aye,” William said softly, pulling gently on the reins and quietly slipping out of the saddle. He followed his Da to the small stream nearby, setting the horses to water and graze from the weeds that slowly swayed in the current.

Da leaned against a tree, sheltered from the bright blinding sun by the thick branches overhead, and unrolled the wedges of bread and cheese Mrs. Crook had packed up for them.

“Ye’ve been quiet this morning, lad. Something on yer mind?”

William settled down beside him and helped himself to a piece Da had cut with his knife.

“No, not anything, really. Just – thinking.”

“Mmphm. Anything in particular, then?”

William hesitated – but suddenly the words poured out. “I dinna wish to – that is, I mean – I ken I’m old enough to understand the difference between a story and what’s real, but I dinna understand it, and –”

Da rested a gentle hand on his shoulder. “ _Seas, a bhailach_. Ye aren’t making any sense. Just get it out.”

William swallowed. “Is Mama a fairy?”

Da’s face scrunched in surprise. “What?”

“Is she a fairy, Da?”

Da set down his knife next to the bread and cheese. William had his undivided attention. “And why would ye think that?”

“She’s a wise-woman – ye’ve said it yerself. She doesna ever get sick. She’s older than Auntie Jenny but she looks much younger. She doesna have any family of her own. She uses strange words that I’ve never heard before or seen in books.”

William looked up and saw his father’s face had turned to stone. “And the lads at school are always saying she uses charms and such for her healing – though I ken that’s no’ true, since she’s showed me how she uses the herbs.”

He paused, waiting for some kind of answer from his father.

“There are many things in this world, William, that we dinna understand. That we canna understand.” Da plucked out a few blades of grass and turned them over in his hands. William saw the faint round scar on the back of his father’s right hand shine in the sunlight.

“Yer Mam comes from a different place – ye ken that weel, just from hearing her speak. But I don’t just mean a physical place. I mean a different place altogether.”

William’s dark brows furrowed. “I dinna understand, Da.”

Da sighed. “When she was a lass, her world was completely different from our own. She grew up in a time of peace, where people dinna get sick as often, and where women can come and go as they please, like men do. She got a verra good education. And that often scares folk who ken they’re not educated, because they dinna ken what to make of it.”

William nodded, still not quite understanding.

“She’s no’ a fairy – though I can understand why you and lads at school may think she is. But fairy or no – do ye understand that she always needs protection?”

“Aye – but from what?”

Da shrugged. “People fear her because they dinna understand her. Do ye ken that one of the main reasons I marrit her was to protect her?”

William laced and unlaced his fingers in his lap. “I always thought it was because ye love her that ye marrit her.”

William could hear the smile in his father’s voice. “Aye, I did, and I do – but at that moment it was more because she needed protection from the redcoats. And I was the best one to provide that protection, even though it was at great risk to myself. So ye see, William – it’s been my responsibility to protect her for almost as long as I’ve known her. That is my duty as a man and as her husband. When I marrit her I swore an oath before God to protect her – and I’ve honored it every day since then. That is what a man does for the ones he loves.”

Da paused, hesitating. “I’m now going to tell ye something I’ve never told yer sister, or my sister, or even Uncle Ian.” He paused. “I’ll need ye to never repeat it to anyone. Can ye do that?”

William sat up straight and met his father’s eyes. He nodded, though his heart started beating a bit faster.

“So. Right after I marrit yer Mam, I was called away to serve one of my uncles. I had to leave yer mother. She had nobody to protect her. Folk felt much the same about her then – though the feelings were sharper, as she’d only been in the Highlands a short time.” He swallowed. “And people took advantage of me not being there to arrest yer mother and try her as a witch.”

William gaped. “What? A witch? But why? If she’s no a fairy -”

“Let me finish. She was tried as a witch, but I was able to get her out afore anything could be done to her. Then I asked her whether she was a witch. And she told me she wasna, and I believed her. I still believe her.”

Da’s eyes were far away. “And then she told me something – something so fantastic and terrifying that I still canna quite believe it. But ye’ll know we pledged honesty to each other, yer mother and I? So, even though I didna understand what she’d told me, I believed her. Because that is what a man does for the ones he loves.”

He gently grasped William’s hand. “I’ll ask ye to do the same, _a charaid_. Ye need to trust me when I say that she isna a fairy, or a witch, or anything from the supernatural. She’s yer mother, and my wife, and she’s different from all other women, and we love her something fierce, don’t we?”

William nodded, voice thick. “Aye.”

“Good. And ye ken that if something were ever to happen to me, William – today, or next month, or ten years from now – and I were to die, ye must take my place as yer Mam’s protector. No matter where ye may be or what ye’re doing.”

“Da, I dinna like when ye talk like that.”

“I ken that, but a man faces up to his responsibilities, even when it may be uncomfortable to talk about.” He thoughtfully chewed on a mouthful of bread and cheese. “Ye must be willing to protect yer Mam and yer sister wi’ your life, if necessary. Can I count on you to do that?”

William swallowed, but strongly met Da’s gaze. “Aye, Da. Ye can.”

Da smiled and gathered his son into his arms. “Good lad. Ye ken I love ye, right, William? Ye’ll make a braw man when the time comes.”

William felt torn between wanting to melt into his father’s shoulder, like he did when he was a wee lad, and the desire to not show that level of emotion, as he believed a true man would act. But at this time, in this moment, he sighed against his father’s chest and let himself be held.


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](http://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/156932414141/shifted-part-6-chapter-4)

_**Part 6 - The Honeymoon** _

**Lallybroch, Summer 1763** _**  
** _

_**Chapter 4** _

* * *

 

Later that night, wrapped in blankets before Grannie MacNab’s fire, Jamie held his sleeping son close.

William’s question by the stream had startled him – but had not taken him completely by surprise. He kent well how the bairns in the village – and their parents – freely speculated about Claire and her gifts when outside of his earshot. William was a sensitive lad – of course he’d pick up on it. And unlike his sister, who would just as soon wallop anyone who said an unkind thing about her mother, William was prone to turn things over and over in his sharp wee mind before asking more about it.

Claire knew, of course. She still had trouble speaking the _Gaidhlig_ , but she understood it just fine. And the more dimwitted tenants and villagers often forgot that she could understand their jests and insults. She usually remained close-lipped about it – though he knew it grated on her. She’d long ago made peace that she would never truly be a Highlander – though Jamie kent well that she’d lived at Lallybroch for longer than she’d ever lived in one place in her entire life, both in her time and in his.

William, brave lad, had proven himself to Jamie today. That he understood what Jamie had told him about Claire’s past – or as much of it as he felt comfortable sharing – and accepted his responsibility as a man to protect the women in his family – proved that he had the makings of a great man. He should receive an education befitting of his cleverness and status.

Another thing to bring up with Claire. Jamie wished William to study in Paris, as he had. Claire had never been too keen on the idea – but Jamie knew that as William grew older and clearly demonstrated that he’d moved beyond what the village schoolmaster could teach, the idea of sending him to Paris became more and more acceptable.

Though if he was being honest with himself – it was Brianna they should send to Paris first, to enroll at the Universite. She was of the right age, she was more than clever enough. Claire said she’d travel to Paris herself, to make sure that they’d enroll Brianna properly.

Jamie shook his head slightly and kissed the crown of his son’s head. Claire was willing to return to Paris – which she hadn’t visited since the disastrous events surrounding his duel – taking her second daughter to the place where she’d lost her first daughter. He’d send Murtagh with them, of course, as the terms of his pardon bound him to Lallybroch for another three years yet. It pained him that he couldn’t take his own daughter to the place where he’d been educated – but then again, that would give him plenty of time with William.

His son. It was still hard to believe he had a daughter, let alone a son as braw and bonny as William. He favored Claire in looks, but minded him of Murtagh in temperament.

Murtagh took his role as godfather – and foster grandfather – to the Fraser children very seriously. He’d stood in for Jamie on trips to other estates with Ian, letting William and Brianna tag along to show them what life was like beyond Lallybroch. Many a time Jamie had found William and Murtagh doing chores together, speaking quietly in the kitchen, or in the barn brushing down the horses. When William was seven, Murtagh had helped Jamie show the wee lad how to fight left-handed. And when William was nine, he’d insisted on inviting Murtagh into his parents’ bedroom to show him – with the door locked – how he’d learned to wear his Fraser kilt and plaid.

Jamie could have sworn he’d seen Murtagh swipe at his eyes on that day – though of course the stubborn man would never admit anything.

William stirred in his arms, and Jamie shushed him quietly.

William was starting to feel the pull of manhood – wanting desperately to be regarded as a man by his father and cousins, but still wanting to be held and comforted like he had when he was a wee lad. Jamie minded how he’d considered himself a true man at the ripe old age of fourteen – when his voice had changed and he’d grown half a foot in the span of one season. By that measure, William had some years to go yet. But Jamie had a feeling that William wasn’t like other boys – that one day, he’d wake up and find that he’d grown into the man he’d been all along. None of that nonsense that other lads put their parents through.

Jamie shut his eyes and held William close. Plenty of time to worry about those things. First things first – finish up Grannie MacNab’s chores in the morning, take William around to all the nearby cottages to re-introduce him to the MacNab family, and then start back for Lallybroch before nightfall. One night of sleeping in the heather, and then back home before noon the next day.

Back to Claire. His heart surged at the thought. He didna ken why, but in the past few weeks he’d felt strong, sharp pulls of desire for his wife. Even though they were an old marrit couple now – twenty years next autumn – his desire for her had never waned. Which was why it had killed him this morning, seeing her attempt to shut down and pull away from him. He needed to do more to show her just how beautiful she was to him – just how much he loved her, and enjoyed spending time with her. And making love to her, if he was being honest. Never before had she needed reassurance – but never before had they been in their forties, with growing children and the responsibilities of running an estate.

He’d ask Murtagh to mind the bairns for a few days so that he and Claire could take a small trip of their own. It didna matter where – only that they were together, away from the house and their responsibilities for a change. Like how they’d been together for those glorious three days after their wedding. Claire had told him how newlyweds in her time often took a “honeymoon” trip together – he minded how the reason she’d been in the Highlands in the first place was because she was on a second honeymoon wi’ her first husband.

That was it, then. He’d surprise her with a wee trip. Reconnect with her in the way he’d been sorely aching to. To discuss anything freely, without any interruptions. And learn and grow together, just as they had nineteen years before.

Grannie MacNab’s snores drifted through the dark from her bed on the other side of the room. Aye, he couldna finish up his chores and get back to his wife soon enough.

 


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](http://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/157233226675/shifted-part-6-chapter-5)

_**Part 6 - The Honeymoon** _

**Lallybroch, Summer 1763**

_**Chapter 5** _

* * *

 

 

“What is it, Jamie?”

 

Claire had finally come to bed. William had kept her long enough, wanting to share every last detail of the trip with his da. The people he’d met, the chores he’d done, the pheasants and rabbits he’d caught himself and roasted for supper. Claire’s heart had burst with love for her son, already showing the makings of a great man. Like his father.

 

Jamie had kissed her deeply when he returned, quickly whispering “I’ve something to discuss wi’ ye tonight” in her ear before seeing to the horses. And then supper, and then chores, and then she had spent time reconnecting with William while Jamie had spent time reconnecting with Brianna. It was past dark now, and she’d yet to have any kind of conversation with her husband.

 

Jamie turned back the quilt on Claire’s side of the bed and extended his arm towards her. “Come.”

 

Softly she padded over to him and eased beneath the sheets, nestling into his shoulder. He sighed contentedly and kissed her forehead.

 

“I’ve been looking forward to this ever since we rode out.”

 

“What? Sleeping in a real bed?”

 

He snorted. “Aye, that too. Grannie MacNab snores like the devil, I’ll tell ye. Good thing William sleeps like he’s been poleaxed, elsewise there’d be no way the puir lad could get any rest.”

 

He paused. “No, _mo nighean donn_ – I’ve had almost nothing else on my mind except the desire to have ye back in my arms. To hold ye close. And speak wi’ ye of whatever’s on my mind.”

 

She nuzzled into his neck. “Mmphm. Flatterer.”

 

Gently Jamie laced the fingers of one hand through hers. His other hand played with her wedding ring. “I want to take ye on a wee trip, Claire.”

 

That surprised her. “Oh? To where?”

 

He shrugged. “It doesna matter. I only want to spend some days wi’ you – only you. Away from the bairns and the house, ken?”

 

“I ken,” she said softly.

 

“So. I was thinking on those three days we spent together after we wed – about how much we learned about each other. And how close I grew to ye during that time. Do you remember?”

 

Playfully she shoved his shoulder. “Idiot. Of course I remember.”

 

He smiled into her hair. “Weel. That was our – honeymoon, ken? So it’s high time we had a second one.”

 

She kissed his shoulder. “That’s a lovely idea. The children won’t mind – they’re old enough to get on without us.” She paused. “You know, I don’t think we’ve ever taken a trip away from them.”

 

“I dinna think we have. Murtagh can mind them – they’ll probably be excited to have us away.” Her free hand lay on top of his, and the fingers of their four hands tangled together, untangled, and traced to find each other again.

 

“When would you like to go?”

 

Jamie watched their hands make love to each other. “Tomorrow, or the day after next?”

 

She smiled. “Yes. Yes please.”

 

He bent to kiss her gently. “All right then. But I’ll ask one thing of ye while we’re away.”

 

She kissed him again. “What’s that?”

 

“Stay away from any stone circles, Sassenach. I mind what happened the last time ye took a second honeymoon.”

* * *

 

“Is this it, then?”

 

Jamie nudged the horse down the slope toward the empty cottage. “Aye, ‘tis. Did ye truly think I’d make ye sleep in the heather, or under a tree, Sassenach?”

 

She settled against him in the saddle. “Wouldn’t be the first time – though it has been quite a while since we’ve done that.”

 

“Aye, weel. The croft has been empty for some time now – the family emigrated to the New World a few years back. I’ve taken William here now and again, to show him how to mend a few things. That’s how I ken there’s a table, chairs, and bed inside.” Gently he lay a hand on her thigh, grinning. “All we need, I suppose.”

 

She could only smile back. “Indeed.”

 

Jamie eased the horse to a stop in the small dooryard. He slid off and helped Claire to the ground. “Shall I take our things inside, then?”

 

“Aye – I’ll hobble the wee beastie and be in straight away.”

 

Claire lay a hand on his forearm, and Jamie turned to meet her eyes. Quickly she kissed his cheek. “Hurry,” she whispered.

 

Jamie swallowed. Emotion surged within him – desire, want, need, love. Always love for this fine, rare woman.

 

“Get inside, Sassenach. I dinna plan to let you out until mid-day tomorrow at least.” She grinned, effortlessly undoing their bags from the horse’s back and slipping inside the croft.


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](http://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/157527021848/shifted-part-6-chapter-6)

_**Part 6 - The Honeymoon** _

**Lallybroch, Summer 1763**

_**Chapter 6** _

 

* * *

 

 

“Dear me,” she breathed. “You’d think we’d been apart twenty years.”

 

Jamie nuzzled and sucked her neck with slow, wet kisses. “Mmphmm. When was the last time we lay together in the middle of the day? Yer skin looks so bonny in the sunlight, _mo nighean donn_.”

 

She hummed against him, winding her legs tighter around his hips. The motion shifted him even deeper inside her, and they both gasped.

 

“ _A Dhia_ ,” he whispered. “Claire, ye feel so – I canna describe it.”

 

She ran a gentle hand over his shoulders, tracing the web of his scars. “I know. I feel it too.” She paused, thoughtful. “You said that on our wedding night, didn’t you?”

 

She shivered as Jamie gently bit her collarbone. “I said a lot of things, Sassenach. Can ye be a wee bit more specific?”

 

“ _A Dhia_. Right before we made love the first time.”

 

He snorted. “Aye, I did. Though I canna say it was making love – I had no idea what in hell I was doing, and I certainly didna ken that ye were meant to get something out of it.”

 

Her fingers tangled in the hair at the base of his skull. “I forgive you for that time. You’ve more than made up for it since then.”

 

He sighed against her. “It’s no’ blasphemy to say that, ken. It’s a prayer of thanks.” He raised up on his elbows to just look at her. Christ, she was beautiful, cheeks pink with color and hair all frizzy around her heid. “I could pray my thanks for being marrit to ye every second of every day for the rest of my life, Claire, and it would never be enough.”

 

Her eyes glistened with tears. She ran her thumb over his nose and chin. He parted his lips and took her thumb in his mouth, sucking softly.

 

Gently his hips began the slow, familiar rhythm. Her lips parted and she gasped, tears slipping down her cheeks. He eased her thumb out of his mouth and traced his own thumb along the path of her tears. “Shh. Let it out, _mo graidh_. Let me love you some more.”

 

Later, flushed and rumpled and yet energized, he held her tightly to his chest, lips against her hairline, watching the sun set through the grimy window.

 

“What’s been troubling ye, Claire?” he asked softly. “Honesty, now.”

 

She sighed – he felt the rush of warm air against his shoulder. “I can’t really describe it. Just – so much feeling.”

 

“About what?”

 

She paused. “You and the children, mostly.”

 

“But ye’ve always had those worries. What makes it different now?”

 

Her hand found his and wrapped her fingers around his thumb, caressing. “I have worried every day since we returned from France that you’ll be taken from me. I worry about how things will change once you’re free to leave Lallybroch in three years’ time. I worry about the children – what will come next for them in their lives, whether Brianna will ever find a husband that truly understands and respects her, whether William will stay with us once he’s grown or whether he’ll want to seek his own adventure in Inverness or Edinburgh or another city.”

 

He kissed her forehead. “Ye’re such a good mother – of course ye should worry. But have I done anything recently to make ye think that I’ll be taken from ye?”

 

He felt her shake her head. “No – no more than the usual. Just – my greatest fear is being parted from you.”

 

He settled down on the pillow to meet her eyes. “Ye ken I’ll never let that happen.”

 

She caressed his cheek. “I ken, Jamie. But it’s happened before – even though you fought so hard for it not to. It nearly killed me, you know that.”

 

“I do. But do ye think it was any different for me, Claire?”

 

“No, I don’t. But it’s always at the back of my mind – if something were to happen to you, what would I do?”

 

He closed his eyes and sighed. “We’ve never talked of it, have we?”

 

“No, we haven’t. But we should.”

 

“Tomorrow, perhaps? I’ve been thinking – we should walk along the burn, you could gather some of your wee herbs and I’ll find fish for our supper.”

 

She smiled. “Are you deliberately trying to replicate what we did right after we married?”

 

He butted her nose with his. “Maybe.”

 

She kissed him then, slow and sweet.

 

“I’ve got an idea.”

 

He kissed her chin and settled his hand at the small of her back. She nestled into his chest. “What is it?”

 

She smiled, almost shyly. “Tell me something about yourself you’ve never told me before. And I’ll do the same.”

 

His eyebrow raised. “Ye already ken all the important things about me, Sassenach.”

 

Gently she nudged his shoulder. “Come on. There has to be _something_ you’ve never told me.”

 

He frowned, then – blushed? His cheeks flushed beneath her hand.

 

“Jamie? What is it? Surely it can’t be that bad?” She kissed the tip of his nose. “You’re not going to tell me that you weren’t a virgin on our wedding night, after all?”

 

“No, that’s God’s honest truth. Rather - I’m afraid you’ll laugh at me, but I felt the same way on our wedding night, and even though ye did laugh at me I didna mind it so much.”

 

She caressed his cheek, curious. “Tell me.”

 

He swallowed. “Do ye remember when we were trying to – trying to conceive William?”

 

She smiled widely. “Yes. And you don’t?”

 

He sighed, exasperated. “Ah. Weel. I never told ye this – but I did a lot of praying, then.”

 

Love surged in her heart. “I know – I understood the prayer you said, every time you finished inside me.”

 

That stopped him. “Ye did?”

 

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “It’s one of the most beautiful and thoughtful things anyone has ever done for me. I didn’t let on because – because I didn’t want you to stop. And it worked in the end, did it not?”

 

He breathed in her hair deeply. “Aye, I suppose. Only, I didna just do that. I prayed a whole rosary every day. And I – ” he paused. “I – I took some herbs every day, too.”

 

Claire rose up on one elbow. “ _What?_ What kind of herbs?”

 

He lay flat on his back and rubbed his hands over his face. “I went early on to see Grannie MacNab, to help her wi’ chores. She could tell straight away that something was troubling me – so I told her that you and I were trying for another bairn. And she told me that every day for the first ten years of her marriage to Mr. MacNab, she’d fed him some herbs wi’ his parritch. To make his seed stronger, ken? And she had the eight boys in twelve years, so…”

 

Claire was profoundly touched. “So is that what you did, then?”

 

“Aye. She was verra matter-of-fact about it, she told me where to find the plants and how to prepare them.” He reached up one hand and delicately traced down her nose and cheek. “I wanted – I wanted my seed to be as strong as possible, every time we lay together. I wanted so badly to give ye another child, _mo nighean donn_. So as soon as ye told me about the bairn I had to let her know – to thank her.”

 

“That’s why you’re always taking William up there – out of thanks.”

 

“Aye, I suppose. Only – it brings her joy to see me wi’ him. To ken that she played a small part in him coming to be.” He sat up against the headboard and crossed his arms. “I would have done anything, Claire – anything to give ye another bairn. So.”

 

She settled into his shoulder against the headboard. “Thank you.”

 

“Ye’re welcome.” He kissed her forehead, then grinned. “Now it’s yer turn.”

 

Claire traced her fingers along his collarbone, thoughtful.

 

“I wasn’t a virgin when I married Frank.”

 

Jamie jerked away from the headboard and grasped both her hands in his. “ _What_?”

 

She smiled. “I’m glad I can still surprise you, after all these years.”

 

He blinked. “What do ye mean, ye werena a virgin when you marrit him?” A look of horror crossed his face. “There’s no’ another husband ye havena told me about, is there?”

 

She squeezed his fingers. “No – I’ve only been married twice. I had a lover before I met Frank – I lost my virginity to him.”

 

Jamie’s brow furrowed. “Who was he? How old were ye? What happened to him? Did he break yer heart? Do ye think of him still? Did ye – ”

 

She settled a finger against his lips. “Shh. I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

 

He swallowed. “Any other men I should know about, Sassenach?”

 

She smiled. “No, Jamie. And I’ve never mentioned him to you because I honestly haven’t thought about him for years. I hadn’t thought about him for a long time before I met you.”

 

His blue gaze pierced through her. “Tell me everything.”

 

She moved closer, nudging her knees against his. “I met him when I was sixteen. He was an assistant of my uncle’s – on a short expedition. He was older than me – a university student in his early twenties. I took a fancy to him – and he to me.”

 

Jamie’s arms vibrated with tension. “Why did ye give him yer maidenheid?”

 

She sighed. “My uncle took a trip for a few weeks – left me alone with him. Things – sped up while my uncle was away. It was the summertime. I thought I was ready to be a woman, and I told him as much.”

 

He shook his head. “Always telling men what to do.”

 

She ignored his comment. “So – I told him I wanted to be a woman, not a girl. It was very brief, very passionate. Then my uncle came back, and then he was called back to the university on urgent business. And I never saw him again.”

 

He caressed the backs of her hands. “That was it, then?”

 

She nodded. “Frank didn’t mind when we married – I knew he’d had lovers before, and he said it wasn’t fair for him to judge me when I hadn’t judged him.”

 

Jamie looked down at their joined hands. “Did ye love him?”

 

She shook her head and met his gaze head-on. “No. I thought I did, but now I know that it wasn’t love. He broke my heart, Jamie. It was a very painful and confusing time. He showed me that I was indeed a woman – that I had the body of a woman – but he destroyed a piece of my heart. I realized that I’d always want more than he could give.” She paused. “I suppose I always wanted more from Frank than he could give me, too.”

 

Jamie’s thumb traced her iron ring – so worn from nearly twenty years of use. “And me?” he said, voice small and quiet. “Do ye want more than I can give ye?”

 

She smiled and crawled into his lap, wrapping her legs around his hips and her arms around his shoulders. “You have given me everything you have – your name, your body, your family, your mind, your heart – since the day we married. You’ve showed me what love really is, Jamie. And you’ve always been more than enough.” She swallowed. “You’ve always offered more than I could possibly take.” She brought her forehead against his. “That’s why I worry, too - I know it’s absolute nonsense – but…I worry that I’m not enough for you. That one day you won’t want me anymore.”

 

His mouth gaped – and she saw the hurt in his eyes. “Claire, I –”

 

She placed her fingers against his lips. “I know. It’s foolish to think that way. Everyone always says it to me how lucky I am that my man only has eyes for me. Has only ever had eyes for me. But do you understand now, why I feel the way I do? Why I – why I have been needing you more, lately, than I ever have before?”

 

He twined his fingers in her hair and pressed her face into his neck. She breathed deeply.

 

“Ye worry that ye’re no’ enough for me – and I worry I’m no’ enough for you.”

 

“Idiot,” she sniffed. “Of course you’re enough. You’re more than enough.”

 

“Aye. So do ye see, Claire, that what we worry about are things that willna happen? Because I love ye too much to let it happen, and ye love me too much to let it happen?”

 

She nodded against him.

 

“Truly? Do ye truly understand that, now?”

 

She lifted her head and cradled his face between her hands. Then she kissed him, slow and long and deep.

 

“Yes,” she finally whispered against his lips. “Yes. I do.”


	33. Chapter 33

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](http://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/157820673412/shifted-part-6-chapter-7)

_**Part 6 - The Honeymoon** _

**Lallybroch, Summer 1763**

_**Chapter 7** _

Sometime later, they lay by the fire, wrapped up in a Fraser plaid.

“I mind ye said to me once that all the most important nights of our life had been spent in a plaid, Sassenach,” he had said earlier after producing it from his saddlebag. “So, why would this wee trip be any different?”

Claire’s head lay cradled on the inside of Jamie’s bicep, her nose buried in the valley of his chest. His fingers gently tangled and untangled in her hair.

No need to share words – just closeness, skin on skin. Intimacy.

“Jamie?”

“Hmm?”

“Have you got your dirk? Or _sgian dhu_?”

He lifted her chin to meet his eyes. “Will ye hold it to my throat again? I havena ever laid a hand on ye since that one day.”

She smiled. “No, idiot. I want you to mark me.”

His brow furrowed. “Mark ye? Why would I ever do that?”

“I was thinking. Maybe the reason why I’m afraid I’m not good enough for you is that when you’re not with me, I can’t feel you. When I feel you, when I touch you, I’m not afraid. But when we’re apart –”

He nodded. “Aye, I understand.”

“So. If you mark me somewhere, somehow – then I’ll feel your touch on me always. And then I won’t feel the way I have.”

“Are ye sure?”

She nodded. Gently he rose and crossed the room, digging through his saddlebags to produce his _sgian dhu_. Silently he sat back down beside her and crossed his legs.

He held the wee knife in one hand, thoughtful.

“Give me yer right hand, Claire.”

She sat up and wrapped the plaid around her shoulders, reaching out her hand. Jamie looked at it, palm up, for a long while.

Making up his mind, he raised her palm to his lips and bit sharply at the base of her thumb. Before she could cry out, he cut a small shape in the reddened skin, then held her bleeding hand to his lips.

The shock of it had stolen Claire’s voice – but the sheer intimacy of the result, with Jamie using his mouth to stanch the blood, lit a flame inside her.

After a while he withdrew his lips, licking the base of her thumb to wipe away any remaining blood. He released her hand, and gingerly Claire brought her hand into her view.

He’d carved a small – but recognizable – letter “J” into her thumb.

“Do ye like it, Claire?” he said, voice thick.

Her heart was full. “I love it,” she whispered.

She started when he laid his left hand on her lap. “My turn,” he said softly.

Claire didn’t stanch the bleeding after carving a “C” into the base of his thumb. Rather, she flicked the blade against the “J” on her thumb to bring her blood to the surface. Silently, she pressed the base of her thumb against his. Their fingers twined together, their blood mingling as it slowly seeped in the space between their palms.

With her left hand, she caressed his cheek. His eyes met hers, full of fire. “Blood of my blood,” she whispered.

“Bone of my bone,” he said, breathlessly. “I do love you, Claire. I hope you know that.”

Gently she settled onto his lap, using her free hand to wrap the plaid around his shoulders – cocooning them in warmth.

“I do know that, Jamie. And I do love you, so much I can’t believe it sometimes.”

She guided him inside of her. He gasped, then smiled into her kiss.

“Let me spend the rest of my life proving to you it’s real, then.”


	34. Chapter 34

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](http://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/158108307162/shifted-part-6-chapter-8)

_**Part 6 - The Honeymoon** _

**Lallybroch, Summer 1763**

_**Chapter 8** _

“Found anything?”

Claire squinted up at Jamie. “No, false alarm. Still looking.” She rose from her crouch by the stream, rubbing her back and stretching her arms. “I see you had better luck, though?”

A glistening string of trout hung from his hand, swaying gently. “We willna go hungry today, that’s for sure.”

He extended his free hand to Claire, and she took it gladly. “You want to stay another day, then?”

“Aye – there’s no rush to go back, Sassenach. The bairns and house can mind themselves for a wee bit.” He squeezed her fingers, squinting into the noon sun. “You and I – we need this time. Not that we don’t get time at home, but it’s different, now, ken?”

She stroked the back of his hand with her thumb. They’d been at the cottage two full days now – two languid, heavenly days. They hadn’t spent this much time alone together since the Rising.

Claire hadn’t realized just how much she needed this time with him. No children, chores, patients, nieces and nephews, servants, or tenants to distract them.

They’d talked and talked and talked. About small things, shared memories, hopes, and dreams. Making love whenever they felt like it – near the fire, on the settle, in the grass atop Jamie’s plaid. The same plaid he had proudly worn since they arrived.

He hadn’t worn a plaid daily since Brianna was born. Seeing him in his kilt and plaid, a string of fish in one hand, the sun lighting his hair from behind, she stepped back almost twenty years.

“It’s nice to have the quiet. As long as I’ve got you to share it with.” She turned to him, and he met her smile.

“Aye. Wi’ ye by my side, _mo nighean donn_ , I know I can do anything.”

They’d reached the cottage – Claire held the door open for him and stayed in the doorframe, admiring how the back of his kilt gently swung back and forth in tandem with his bootsteps.

“We’ve a bit of bread from Mrs. Crook, no? That should go well wi’ the fish.” Jamie knelt before the fire, wakened the coals, and started skewering the fish to roast.

“Sounds lovely.” Claire shut the door and strode over to the small table, laying their two plates side by side and unwrapping the last hunk of bread from Lallybroch. Behind her the fish sizzled and popped over the fire.

She surveyed the small room. It had been the ultimate decadence to leave their bed unmade this morning – their pillow in the center, her spare shift askew at the foot, Jamie’s trews in a pool near the head. It looked like a bed shared by lovers – not a respectable married couple.

Claire softly smiled to herself as she sank into one chair and watched her husband cook their supper. Just being in the same room as him – sharing each other’s company, sharing the same space – was enough. He was enough.

“Didn’t you tell me once that fish were not an unprecedented wedding gift?”

He turned to her, grinning. “Aye. Yer memory of those three days seems a lot sharper now than it’s ever been, Sassenach.”

She returned his smile. “Now that I think of it, they were among some of the happiest days in my life.” She paused, thoughtful. “Tell me – what were the happiest days of your life, Jamie?”

He extended one hand for a plate and she gave it to him, watching him remove several charred fish from the grate over the fire. “Hmm. The days the bairns were born, to be sure. The day I received my pardon and knew I was back at Lallybroch for good. The day William put on his plaid by himself for the first time. The day Brianna punched that Chisholm lad in the mouth for insulting ye.” She grinned and switched the full plate for the empty one. He lay the last of the fish on that plate and rose to sit next to her.

“Aren’t you missing a few?”

He eased his chair closer to hers so that their thighs and knees touched. “Weel, there’s the obvious ones, then. The day we wed. The day ye chose me, that first time at the stones.” He kissed her cheek. “Do ye think it possible to realize ye’d had a good day only years afterward?”

She squeezed his bare knee and took a bite out of one fish. “Mmphmm. I think so. What do you have in mind?”

He tore a hunk of bread and lay the rest on her plate. “The day I met ye – when ye mended my shoulder and tended to the gunshot wound.”

“Why would that be happy, Jamie? You were hurt, I kept you from bleeding to death, you were an outlaw in the company of your hostile uncle.” He raised a brow, but she interrupted. “And don’t tell me some nonsense about how you were happy to be with me, because despite what you’ve told me there’s no way you fell in love with me the first time you saw me.”

He grinned. “Weel, I actually fell in love wi’ ye the day _after_ I met ye – and I’d add that to the list. No – that day, Sassenach, was happy for me because the path of my life changed. Had it not been for ye tending to me at the castle, or being someone I could talk to – I dinna ken what other kinds of trouble I would have gotten into.”

She cast her eyes down to her plate, focusing on a pile of neatly stacked fish bones. “And you like where that path has taken you, then?”

He nudged her chin up and met her gaze. “It led me here, to this moment, with you. Aye, I do like where it’s taken me.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “Tell me – what are your happiest days?”

“Besides the ones you mentioned? Well – I could say the end of the War – the World War. But I was so numb to everything then that I wasn’t really happy because it was over, only because it meant I could go home. And – I suppose the day I chose you the second time at the stones. And if you were happy on the days the children were born – I was happy on the days I told you I was pregnant.”

Slowly, thoughtfully he turned his body and rested his forehead against hers. He grasped her hands tightly. “And the day at the abbey – in the spring – when ye told me about Faith. Claire, I – I canna tell ye how much that little bit of joy healed me, after – ” He swallowed.

“Shh. Don’t think about that, not now – please don’t think about that.” She gathered him close and pressed his face into her neck. “Come back. You’re here, with me. Wearing your bloody kilt for the whole world to see. And I’m eating your burned fish and letting you get my shift all wet with snot because I love you, you idiot.”

He laughed softly and raised his head to kiss her for a long while.

“Ye taste like fish,” he said some time later.

She butted her nose against his. “And whose fault is that, do you think?”

He kissed her cheek. “Thank ye for bringing me back, just now” he said softly. “I dinna think of it every day anymore, and ye ken I dinna dream of it as much as I used to. But it’s still – there – almost like I can touch it. And I dinna think it will ever go away.” He swallowed. “That’s another of my happiest days, Claire – the day ye used yer magic to save me at the abbey.”

She traced her thumb against the “C” she’d carved into his hand the previous day. His wounds had long ago healed – and daily exercises with his ball of rags had almost restored the hand and fingers to their full range of motion. She’d given him a small gift when they arrived at the cottage – a jar of cream she’d made herself, after hours of boiling down goose grease and camphor and other fragrant herbs, which she’d rubbed into his aching hand and fingers every morning and night since they’d arrived. He’d said it helped relax the muscles, easing the pain she knew he had lived with daily since the hand had been injured almost twenty years before.

“It wasn’t magic. Just a bit of acting, and opium. And determination, I suppose.”

“It _was_ magic, Claire. To me.” He kissed her eyelids. “I want to tell ye something, and I dinna wish ye to think I’m daft.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m worried already.”

He sighed. “I have thought so many times about all the things that happened right when we were first acquaint. How many wonderful and terrible things happened to us. And how many of those things in those first years were due to Randall.”

She squeezed his fingers. “Jamie – ”

“He ruined my life, and Jenny’s life, and your life. He is the reason my father is dead. He kept me from my home and family for years. He is the reason Faith is dead. He is the reason I have a crippled hand.” His voice was thick – and when she met his gaze, his eyes swam with tears. Overcome, she released his hand and cupped his cheeks.

“Jamie, stop. I know all this. Don’t bring him in here, between us now.”

He shook his head. “But Claire – had he not had me arrested and flogged and caused me to leave Scotland, I would have never been wi’ Dougal and the others when Murtagh found you, right after ye fell through the stones. He made the marks on my back, but it’s those marks that got me talking to ye right away – got me trusting ye and telling ye about the price on my heid. And I marrit ye to keep ye safe from him.”

He swallowed and breathed deeply. “And then - sometimes I wonder whether I ever would have had a chance wi’ you, if things had been different,” he said quietly. “I would have had much more to offer ye, had it no’ been for him. I would have had a chance to win your heart the proper way, by courting you over weeks and months. And giving ye the proper wedding ye deserved – no’ a ceremony held by a bribed priest, under the threat of violence from my uncle, and attended only by strangers.”

Her fingers trembled. She grazed his thumbs over his cheeks, wiping away the tears. “Jamie –”

His eyes, wild, met hers. “Claire – don’t ye understand? I never would ha’ met ye, never would ha’ married you, never would ha’ _lived_ had it not been for him.”

She had no words. Silently she pulled back her chair and led him over to the bed, easing him to sit on the edge while she knelt before him.

Jamie’s eyes, unfocused, were far away. “So I canna truly hate him. Even though I should. Even though I forgave him long ago. He gave me the greatest gift I ever received – you, and our life together.”

She gently eased off his boots before standing before him. She undid her hair. She unbuttoned her shawl and flung it on the bed. She undid her stays and dropped them to the floor. She slipped out of her gown and tossed it behind her – all the while watching Jamie’s gaze.

When she was finally in her shift she saw him startle and look up questioningly to meet her eyes.

“Welcome back,” she said softly.

He gaped. “Christ. Claire. I -”

She eased toward him and sat astride his knees. “Are you here now, with me? Because if I have your attention, I have a few things to say to you.”

He nodded and placed a large hand on her thigh. He buried his nose in the valley between her breasts, breathing deeply.

She twined her fingers into his hair and held him close. “All of what you said may be true, Jamie. It’s remarkable how such small choices – such small events – have such incredible impacts on our lives. Like how if I hadn’t seen those forget-me-nots at Craigh Na Dun, I never would have touched the stone. Never would have found you.”

He inhaled and exhaled – big, deep breaths – and gripped her thigh tightly.

It had been years since they’d talked about this – years since he’d allowed himself to think about the cataclysmic events that had led him to her - that had tested them, torn them apart, but ultimately brought them back to each other, bound tighter than ever before. And as much as she wanted to stop, she knew that he had to get it all out. That she had to get it all out. And then maybe, just maybe, they could finally lay the ghosts to rest.

“But Jamie – had I not gone through the War, I never would have learned to be a nurse. Had I not been married to Frank, I never would have even been in Scotland – and never would have known what happened right after Culloden. So I never would have been able to save you, and Lallybroch.”

Slowly her hand found his – her J pressing directly into his C. She bent to whisper in his ear.

“Our marriage was hasty, yes. And I was reluctant, yes. But I was falling for you, Jamie. I knew from the moment we met that you were more thoughtful, considerate, gentle, and _selfless_ than any man I’d ever known. Than I thought a man could ever be.”

He hummed against her breasts. She pushed his head closer to her body.

“You would never have needed to court me. _You_ are all I’ve ever needed – not your home, not your estate, not anything material. _You_ are enough. Will always be enough.” She licked her lips. “You are my true match. In every way. You understand me and respect me like nobody ever has. You love me, and make love to me, like no man ever has.”

His hand left hers and skimmed down her thigh to cup gently between her legs. She gasped.

“I would have found you,” she whispered, breathless. “I would have married you, and loved you, and bore your children, no matter the circumstances.”

His fingers began stroking her gently. He raised his eyes to meet hers, reveling in how her breathing was picking up.

“You are _my_ true match, _mo nighean donn_. I love ye more than any man has ever loved a woman.”

Claire steeled herself, stood, and shrugged out of her shift. Jamie gaped. She cupped her heavy breasts in her hands, thumb circling her aching nipples. “Take me, Jamie,” she whispered. “Take what’s yours – what always has been yours, what always will be yours.”

He swallowed hard and rose to stand before her. Gently, quickly, she unbuckled his kilt and he whipped his shirt over his head. Finally naked, he seized her mouth in a deep kiss, picking her up effortlessly and easing her onto the bed.

She wrapped her legs around him and reached down to guide him inside of her. His hand stilled hers, though, and she whimpered.

She felt his wide, sweet smile against her lips. “Open yer eyes.”

She did, gasping. Blue met blue. “Eyes on me,” he whispered. “Always on me. Let me show ye what I canna find the words to say, Claire.”

He gently pushed deeper inside of her, and his soul touched hers, and they healed.


	35. Chapter 35

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](https://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/158391591967/shifted-part-6-chapter-9)

_**Part 6 - The Honeymoon** _

**Lallybroch, Summer 1763**

_**Chapter 9** _

* * *

 

Much later, Jamie lounged on the bed, his head on the pillow and his hand in Claire’s lap. She sat upright against the headboard, naked, massaging the scented cream into his hand. Eyes closed, he let out a contented sigh.

“Ye have such a good touch, Claire.”

She smiled down at him. “You do resemble a large cat just now – all lazy and sprawled out over the bed, with that wide smile of yours.”

He sighed happily. She was working the cream into each individual joint of his fingers. His free hand rested on her ankle, stroking gently.

“William asked me if ye were a fairy, when we were going to Grannie MacNab’s.”

Claire paused. “Did he? What did you tell him?”

“That ye’re no’ a fairy, or a witch, but that ye’re something different altogether.”

She resumed her massaging. “I can’t imagine what he must hear at school. Almost seventeen years I’ve been at Lallybroch – I’ve treated almost all their parents, attended many of their births. And still they call me names.”

His fingers, slippery, grasped hers. “Ye may be Scots by marriage, and have two Scots bairns. But ye’ll always be English to them. So that’s why William and I must protect ye.”

“Don’t forget Brianna.”

He grinned. “Aye. Braw lassie. She’ll get into all the fistfights William won’t.”

Silence stretched between them, punctuated only by the crackle from the fire.

“We’ll have to tell them both, Jamie. About who I really am. They have a right to know.”

He sighed. “Aye. When we get home, then. While it’s still fresh in William’s mind.” He opened his eyes and looked up at Claire. She smiled at him. He reached up one hand to trace her cheek, leaving a small trail of grease in his wake. Her skin glowed beneath it.

“If something were to happen to me, Claire – do ye think the bairns can travel through the stones?”

She sighed. “I don’t know, Jamie. But even if they could – would you want them to? This is their time. What would I take them to? It’s not their world, not their life.” She paused. “I’ve been here so long now – I don’t know what that world is like. It’s not my time anymore. And there’s no guarantee I’d end up where I wanted to, anyway. What if I went back even further? Or ahead even further? I can’t take that risk.”

He shifted on the bed. “Aye, I suppose not. But where would you go, then?”

She squeezed his fingers. “I’d stay at Lallybroch, of course.”

“Mmphmm. And if ye couldn’t?”

She swallowed. “Then to Edinburgh, or Inverness. A city. The children would be safer there. William could go into a trade, or be my apprentice. Brianna would find something. And Murtagh would go with us, to protect her.” She eased Jamie’s head into her lap and began massaging his temples. He moaned in appreciation.

“I don’t like this, Jamie. I can’t – it’s almost unbearable for me to think of a world without you in it.”

He sighed. “I know, and you know, but we must. We have to tell that to the bairns, too, so that they’ll always know. We must be prepared for anything.” He turned his head and kissed the inside of her thigh. “Though ye ken weel that if I had any say in the matter, I’d never leave ye alone to begin with.”

His mouth sucked on the skin of her inner thigh, teeth skimming the surface. He mumbled something against her.

“What?”

He turned and met her eyes, upside down. “I said, ye smell of me. Right here.”

Her thumbs traced his eyebrows. “Small wonder. How many times have we made love since coming here?”

He grinned wolfishly. “Should I count the times I woke ye up wi’ a wee kiss down here?”

She playfully shoved his shoulder. “Idiot. Of course you keep count of everything.”

He sat up, faced her, and pushed her down onto the pillow. He climbed on top of her, pressing their lower bodies together. She gasped, feeling him hard and ready against her stomach.

He framed her face between his hands. Heady scents of mint and camphor bloomed between them. “Lord knows when I look at ye I feel like a lad again.” He kissed her softly, worshiping her mouth with his lips and tongue.

“Twelve times, _mo graidh_ ,” he whispered after a long while. “And it’s still no’ enough. Will never be enough.”


	36. Chapter 36

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](https://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/158663806991/shifted-part-6-chapter-10)

_**Part 6 - The Honeymoon** _

**Lallybroch, Summer 1763**

_**Chapter 10** _

* * *

 

Silence. Utter silence.

Claire looked between her two children. Brianna’s brow was deeply furrowed, processing the information. William, poor lad, just looked bewildered, mouth slightly agape.

Jamie pressed his hand to hers on the mattress, twisting her ring between his thumb and forefinger.

“I’ve never seen the two of you speechless before.”

That woke them up. “I dinna understand, Mama,” William said softly. He scrubbed his hair with his hands in a mannerism that was purely Jamie. “Ye’re no’ a fairy, and no’ a witch – Da said so. And these things happen in fairy stories. So why did it happen to you?”

She smiled and cupped his cheek. “I don’t know, love. I’ll never understand it.”

“But did ye try to go back?” Brianna asked. Her eyes darted from Jamie to Claire. “Can ye go back and forth, from this time to that time?”

“No, I haven’t tried to go back. I wanted to go back, right after I arrived. But I never followed through on it.” She paused. “Your Da tried to send me back, but I wouldn’t go.”

“What?” Brianna eased closer to Jamie on the bed and laid a hand on his arm. “When, Da? And why? Anyone wi’ eyes in their heid can see that ye canna live wi’out her.”

Jamie squeezed Claire’s fingers with one hand and Brianna’s with the other. “I didna ken where she’d come from until we’d been marrit for a few months. And then I tried to send her back, because it was a very dangerous time for us. But she wouldna go.” He swallowed, steeling himself. “And then when we found out yer Mam was going to have you, Brianna – right before Culloden, I took her back to the stones. I wanted to keep the both of ye safe, and I feared I’d not be able to do it here, in our time.”

Brianna settled into Jamie’s side. He held her tightly and kissed her forehead.

“Truly, Da?”

“Aye. But she wouldna go then, either. So we came back to Lallybroch, and we’ve been here ever since.”

Claire turned to William and opened her arms. Quickly he crawled into her lap, and she held him close.

“Did ye really want her to go, Da?” William asked in a small voice.

“No, _a bhailach_. It was the last thing in the world I wanted. But when ye love someone, ye always have to put their needs above yours, ken?”

William nodded.

“So – I didna want her living in a time of hardship. Ye won’t remember this, Brianna, but when you were a wee bairn, things were verra difficult here. Redcoat patrols, people not having enough to eat. Drought and puir harvests. Yer Mam knew that was all coming, and I didna want her – or you – to live through that.”

“That’s verra romantic, Da,” Brianna teased.

He pulled back his head to meet her gaze face-on. “It’s the truth, _a leannan_. Dinna make light of it. Ye have no idea how much of a sacrifice I was willing to make for ye.” He traced a finger over her cheek. “I was willing to go my whole life wi’out seeing yer mother again. Wi’out ever meeting ye, wi’out watching ye grow up. Because I love you.”

Brianna’s cheeks colored and she looked down at her hands.

Silence again as the children continued to process the information.

“Mama?”

Claire kissed the top of her son’s head. “Yes, William?”

“Do ye want to go back now?”

She held him tightly. “No, love. I don’t want to go back. I’ll never go back – because I’d never want to leave the two of you, or your father.”

“But don’t you miss yer family?”

Claire sighed. “My parents died when I was small – you know that. I was an only child. I was raised by my uncle – you know that, too. But he died long before I came here.”

“That’s verra sad,” William remarked, snuggling deeper into his Mam’s shoulder.

“It is. But I don’t ever think about it, because now I’ve got more family than I know what to do with – I’ve got the three of you, and Auntie Jenny and Uncle Ian and all your cousins. This is my family. This is my home. Why would I ever leave you? Leave this?”

“I dinna think Da would let ye leave anyway,” Brianna said softly.

“No, I wouldn’t.” Jamie moved closer to Claire and wrapped his arms around her and their children. “We decided to tell ye because ye’re both old enough to understand these things. It’s part of who ye are. But ye must know how important it is that ye never, ever tell anyone else about this. Why do ye think that is?”

“Because folk willna understand,” Brianna said softly. “Ye always say that people fear what they canna understand, Da – so we must protect her from anyone who may try to harm her.”

“It’s my duty as a man to protect her, right, Da?” William said softly.

Claire’s eyes met Jamie’s over the heads of their children. Her eyes filled with tears.

“Aye, it is. Ye’re a braw lad, William – and you,” he addressed his daughter, “are a fine braw woman, Brianna. We named ye after strong people, and ye’ve honored those names weel. And ye can continue to honor them by minding yer Mam a wee bit more, aye?”

Both heads nodded.

“I love the both of you so much,” Claire whispered, holding her children close.

“Mama?” William said after a while.

“Yes, love?”

“I still dinna understand it, how ye came to be here. It would have been much easier if ye’d been a fairy, because at least I _can_ understand that.”

Jamie’s eyes met Claire’s over Brianna’s bright head. His face split in a grin.


	37. Chapter 37

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](https://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/158926183473/hi-i-love-shifted-its-seriously-the-best-part)

_**Prelude - The Discovery** _

**Inverness, February 1746**

“Let’s call it a night, then – no use losing our eyesight over these  old maps. Cumberland’s men will still be there in the morning.”

“But James –”

“ _No_ , Your Royal Highness.” Jamie’s voice was tired, but firm. “We’ve been arguing for hours, and still there is no agreement. We need rest – and fresh eyes. The scouts should be back by dawn, and we can go from there.”

“I concur,” O’Sullivan added, adjusting his wig – which had fallen askew over his forehead in the height of the argument.

Prince Charles Edward Stuart strode, tight-lipped, out of the room and in the direction of the kitchens.

The weary generals and advisers quickly dispersed – some to check on their men, others to review the latest dispatches from the Continent – the gold had still not arrived from France.

And still others – like Jamie – to the oblivion of sleep.

His position – and Claire’s vital role tending to the health and well-being of the troops – had landed them a drafty set of rooms on the third floor of the manor house once – still? – owned by a Jacobite on the outskirts of Inverness. The ragtag Highland army was encamped on the frozen grounds – having long overstayed their welcome in the farms of the neighboring villages.

It was February. It was cold. The cause teetered somewhere precariously between total success and utter failure.

But as Jamie crossed the top landing and rapped on the door six times – the signal he and Claire had set for each other – he knew that at least tonight he would be neither cold, nor alone.

The door flew open. Claire – clutching her arisaid around her shoulders, hair all wild.

Swiftly he slipped inside, and she was in his arms.

The fire crackled as they held each other. Savored each other. Breathed each other in.

Claire’s cold fingers wormed under his collar.

“Good evening, my beautiful wife,” he whispered against her crown. “And how was your day, since last we met?”

“Better, now that you’re here,” she whispered.

He pulled back just a bit, taking the ends of her arisaid into his hands and folding the long cloth around them both.

“Scurvy is setting in,” she murmured. “I saw at least ten men with symptoms today. It’s not bad yet, but if their food supply doesn’t improve…”

“It won’t,” he replied softly. “The damn generals canna agree on anything. They got Prince Charles all excited about a possible new strategy that I saw right away wouldna work. And now they’re angry at me for speaking the truth.”

“While the men suffer.”

He sighed. “Aye.”

She swallowed against him – and her pulse stuttered beneath his lips.

“What’s troubling you, Sassenach?”

She said nothing, but pulled back to look at him.

Christ, when had those wrinkles appeared at the creases of her eyes?

What had this life done to her?

What had _he_ done to her?

“It didn’t come today, Jamie.”

Tears flooded her eyes. His heart leapt to his throat.

“Forty-six days. There’s only one possible explanation.”

Joy.

Terror.

Awe.

“ _Gasta_ ,” he breathed.

Two weeks now they had waited. At first Claire explained that the delay could be due to any number of factors – stress, poor diet. But as the days passed, and still no sign of her monthly –

Jamie dropped to his knees and pressed his face against Claire’s belly. She wove her fingers into his hair, anchoring him.

“I don’t know whether to be happy or sad.” Her voice was choked – her fingers trembling.

“ _Mo nighean donn_ – this is the happiest news we’ve had in a long while. As ye ken weel.”

They stayed like that for what could have been minutes or hours – thinking.

“I want to go home,” Claire finally spoke. She crossed her legs and sat before Jamie on the threadbare rug. “But I can’t leave you, Jamie. I _won’t_.”

He pursed his lips, still deep in thought.

“I’ve sacrificed so much already – _you_ have, too.” His eyes watched the fire consume another log. “We’re at an impasse. It’s not too late to leave.”

“What do you mean?”

Now he turned to face her – eyes wide. “I’m saying that we leave. I resign my post, bring the men back to Lallybroch. Avoid the battle – the ruin – that we ken is coming.”

The log snapped in two.

“You’d do that?” Her voice was small. “I can’t ask you to give that up –”

“Damn it, Claire! None of it matters now. You – and the bairn – you _must_ be in a safe place. And it’s my duty to provide ye wi’ that safe place. Enough of this damn fool prince and the generals with their heads up their arses!”

“Sshh!” she hissed.

“I dinna give a fig if they hear. Nobody will admit it – the cause is lost. The emperor – the prince – he has nae clothes on.” Jamie shifted to take her hands. “So – so we will leave. I will take ye home, and we will raise the bairn away from all this nonsense.”

“But what about Murtagh? Dougal? And what will Prince Charles think?”

“I’ll figure it out,” he vowed. “I always do.”

She shook her head. “Are we being selfish? Does this make us bad people, for just -just wanting to leave everything behind?”

“No.” His voice was strong – confident – definite. “No, Claire. We are doing what’s right for us. For our family. That canna be wrong.”

Then he abruptly stood, pulling her upright, and led he to the edge of the bed. She had been sleeping before he came in – the quilt on her side was turned back.

She reached up for a kiss.

“When do we start?”

He kicked off his boots and lay her against the pillow. “Tomorrow. Tonight, we celebrate this gift from God.”

And in the small, dark hours of the deep night, she woke to his whispers.

Her _Gaidhlig_ was still far from perfect – but she’d recognize the words for “white dove” anywhere.


	38. Chapter 38

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](https://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/159714148699/shifted-prompt-i-would-love-to-hear-more-of-baby)

**Interlude – The Assistant  
**

**Lallybroch, Autumn 1753**

* * *

 

“…and if the wound continues to be all red and puffy in the next few days, add water to this powder and apply it generously to the area. And don’t hesitate to come back for more, if you need it. All right?”

Rosie MacNab, married to one of Grannie MacNab’s army of sons, enthusiastically nodded her head in understanding. “Aye, I understand. Thank ye so much, milady!”

“*Claire,* please. And I’m not the milady, you know that – ”

“Och, that doesna matter to me!” Rosie’s kind, yet weather-lined face creased into a smile, flashing a set of teeth that (despite Claire’s best efforts) had already started to decay. “We all ken weel just how much yer husband has had to sacrifice, just to keep us all safe on the estate. It doesna matter that it’s Young Jamie’s now – yer Jamie will *always* be the laird to us. As long as my mother-in-law walks the earth, anyway.”

Claire pressed her lips, still so uncomfortable at such outbursts of praise. Even seven years after Culloden, some wounds still felt so fresh. Jamie had never regretted deeding Lallybroch to his nephew – but she wondered if that choice ever grated on him. Especially now that he had his own son.

Said son chose that exact moment to squawk awake in his basket at Claire’s foot.

“Oh! That must be the wee laddie!”

Claire flashed her own smile as she bent to gently lift four-month-old William Fraser to her shoulder. His cries immediately stopped, and he looked around her surgery with wide, bright eyes.

“There, there. You just *had* to join in on the conversation, didn’t you?”

“Isn’t he the most handsome wee bairn! Looks just like ye, too!”

Claire wrapped William’s blanket – knit so lovingly by his aunt – tighter around his tiny shoulders, smiling as he shoved his fist into his mouth. “Well – since my daughter is the spit of my husband, it’s only fair that my son can take after me a bit, hmm?”

Rosie impulsively bent to kiss William’s soft hair, before pocketing the handkerchief in which Claire had wrapped the dried herbs and then standing. Claire rose as well, and the two women exchanged a quick hug.

“Thank ye again! I can see myself out – no need for ye to give the lad a chill!”

Brianna poked her bright, inquisitive head around the corner just as Rosie departed. “Is he awake?”

William jerked in excitement at the sound of his beloved sister’s voice, squirming against his blanket.

“Sshh. Yes, sweetheart – Bree is here!” Claire cooed, turning so that he could watch his sister skip into the room.

“Can I take him?” Brianna, aged six, doted on her brother like nothing her parents, aunt and uncle, godfather, and the Lallybroch staff had ever seen. Caring for him gave her a great sense of responsibility – and she never tired of showing him off, either.

“Of course. But – ”

“But be gentle and keep him warm. Aye, Mama – I ken fine,” Brianna huffed, extending her arms. Claire carefully lay William against her shoulder, swaddling him in an extra blanket from his basket, and Brianna lay a steadying arm against her brother’s small back.

“Aye, *a bhailach*. All comfortable, no? Let’s go see what Da is up to…”

Softly, carefully Brianna padded out of Claire’s stillroom and toward Jamie’s study down the hall.

Claire’s heart soared – so happy to see further proof of the profound love between her children – and happy to finally have some time to herself. She opened her journal to a fresh page and began entering the details around Paul MacNab’s injury – and just how dedicated Rosie was to fix him.

–

“…barley perhaps? Of course we’ll have the potatoes, but I’m thinking we get that fallow field back into production now, so that we can harvest in the late winter?”

Ian Murray settled a bit deeper into his high-backed chair, rubbing the stump of his leg, thinking. “Aye – I suppose we could. It’s always good to have the variety – and Young Jamie is old enough to really help you out this time.”

Jamie crossed his left leg over his right, balancing a ledger on his knee, forefinger tracing down a long column of figures scrawled in Ian’s spidery hand. “The last time we planted there, the yield was fifty bushels. I think we could definitely – ”

“Hi, Da! What are ye doing?” Brianna burst in, William cradled to her chest, his wee dark head resting comfortably on her shoulder.

“*Ciamar a tha thu, mo nighean ruaidh*?” he greeted her, extending his free hand. Mindful of her brother, Brianna gently settled against his side. “As happy as I am to see you, it isna verra considerate of yer uncle for ye to just barge in wi’out knocking.”

“Oh, it’s nae bother,” Ian kindly insisted, already reaching for his wooden leg to strap it into position. “Might as well let Jamie ken he’ll be expected to help ye till the field. Canna have him grumbling like a bairn to his Mam again.”

William stirred a bit. Jamie closed the ledger, set it on the floor, and in one smooth motion picked up Brianna and set her on his lap. She snuggled, her back to his front, and he lay a gentle arm around them both.

“When will I be old enough to help Jamie wi’ the planting?”

Ian positioned his stump into the wooden leg and looked up at his niece. “Are ye sure ye want to help, then? It’s no’ an easy job. And ye’d have to do *exactly* as yer Da says.”

“I’d love for ye to help me, but ye’re too small to guide the horses.” He felt Brianna inhale a deep breath to protest, but lay a hand on her wee knee. “No – dinna say ye ken how to make them work. It’s verra different than when we go riding – the horses need to focus. And ye must ken what to ask them to do. Otherwise it’s a lot of work and ye dinna get anything out of it. And we dinna like anything to go to waste, aye?”

Brianna sighed against him, but nodded, resigned.

Ian stood – shaky for the first few seconds, but then slowly regained his balance. “It’s verra kind of ye to ask. But does yer Mam no’ need help wi’ the surgery? I thought ye liked doing that.”

“She does need the help – but she doesna let me do everything yet!”

“Ye need to be patient. Enjoy being a girl. Dinna grow into a woman quite so fast,” Jamie said quietly. Thoughtfully. “And did ye no promise to care for yer wee brother? To see him grow safe and strong?”

Brianna nestled her brother closer, feeling him go all boneless with sleep. “Aye, I did.” Her voice was soft – dreamy – far away.

Ian nodded and quietly took his leave of the three Frasers.

Jamie held his miracles – his world – in his lap.

“Can ye tell us a story, Da?” Brianna whispered after a while, turning to rest her face against his shoulder. “I think William enjoys the one about the laird and lady who were living in Paris.”

Jamie shifted in his chair so that Brianna and William – sound asleep now – could get more comfortable.

“Of course. One day, the laird and lady were invited to the most fancy dress party you could dream of. The laird wore his plaid, of course, but the lady wore a red dress that was so beautiful, all the other men at the party couldna help but stare at her…”


	39. Chapter 39

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](https://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/159974351798/shifted-ficlet-prompt-can-we-please-have-some)

Interlude – The Injury

Lallybroch, Autumn 1756

* * *

Murtagh hissed as Claire splashed the wound with raw whisky, muttering several very filthy words in the *Gaidhlig*.

Three-year-old William Fraser gasped from the doorway of Claire’s surgery.

“Out!” Claire ordered, head still bent over the deep gash that had sliced the top of Murtagh’s hairy foot nearly to the bone, drawing the lantern a bit closer over the smooth wood of the table Jamie had made her.

“Ye heard yer Mam! Out!” Murtagh echoed weakly, gripping the sides of his chair, bobbing his uninjured leg up and down.

Jenny appeared in the doorway and softly swept William away to the kitchen.

Claire rose from her crouch and quickly crossed the room, taking her tray of needles and the earthenware jar of sutures – the long, delicate strands of catgut Murtagh himself had helped Jamie prepare (based on Claire’s instructions) not so long ago – from the cabinet Brian had made Ellen when Jamie and Jenny were small. As stubborn as the Fraser who had made it, the cabinet had seen many uses over the years – from Ellen’s dishes, to Jenny’s linens, and now Claire’s medicines.

“It’s a miracle you didn’t slice your bloody foot off.” Claire’s voice was even, methodical. From years of practice, Murtagh knew better than to crack a joke when she was like this. “Weren’t you watching what you were doing? And hasn’t it *ever* occurred to you that we’ve already got a number of able-bodied men on the estate who should be doing that kind of work? I daresay your reflexes aren’t as keen as they used to be – ”

“What will ye have me do, then? No’ help Jamie wi’ the harvest?” Murtagh shifted uncomfortably in his chair – keeping his injured foot steady – and glared at the chignon pinned at the back of Claire’s neck, watching her carefully thread the needle. “Ye ken that Ian canna do it. Young Jamie is still too small to do much in the fields. Fergus can help, aye, and so can Rabbie MacNab – but it’s no’ enough.”

“You can stay here in the house – God knows there are enough children running around to keep you busy.”

“So ye want me to be a *nursemaid* then? Hmm?” Were he able, he would have pounded a table in frustration. “Is that all I am, now? Is it no’ enough that my clan and plaid have all been taken away from me? I must give away my *manhood* as well?”

Claire carefully brought the fully prepared tray to her work table and set it down beside the lamp.

“You *know* that’s not what I mean.”

He felt her gaze burning on him – and defiantly matched it.

“What, then? I am getting auld, yes. But must ye remind me, Claire?”

“I want you to take care of yourself.” She paused, pursing her lips. “You – you can’t just do anything anymore. You *must* be more thoughtful. I’m not saying you don’t think – of course you do. But I certainly *don’t* want happening to you what befalls most men your age. Or what happened to Brian.”

Murtagh physically recoiled. “That was due to shock – ”

“Of course it was – but he *had* to have had an underlying condition. Farming is hard. I’ve come to appreciate that so, so much since I came to Lallybroch. And of *course* accidents happen.”

Now she turned to retrieve a needle, the suture trailing behind like a long, shiny trail of dew. Then took the lantern in her other hand, set it on the floor beside Murtagh’s foot, and knelt before him.

“I can’t lose you,” she said finally. “You’re the only father I’ve ever known. And if I have to keep you bloody locked up in this house to keep you safe from yourself, then damn it that’s what I’ll do. You’re too important to me – and to Jamie – and to the children – and to Jenny and Ian and bloody everyone else in this house.”

She splashed more raw whisky on his foot. This time he didn’t – couldn’t – flinch.

“This gash is just an inch from your anterior tibial artery. Had that artery been severed, you would have lost an incredible amount of blood. And I wouldn’t be patching you up – I’d be amputating your foot. And where would that leave you?”

As gently as she could, she inserted the needle and made her first suture.

“I – suppose – wi’out a leg – to stand on,” he hissed.

Claire lay her left hand on the back of his ankle, bracing the foot to help with the stitches. Her face was still turned away from him – but he watched her shoulders shake in a silent laugh.

“Ye ken I’d never purposely put myself in harm’s way. I *do* always have ye and yer wee family on my mind.”

Claire pulled another suture through the two sides of the wound. “I know that. And I appreciate that. I should tell you more.”

“No need, lass. I ken it, and ye ken it, and yer husband kens it. That’s all that matters.”

She worked in silence then, pausing to collect the other suture she had prepared – but not before pouring the rest of her raw whisky in a beaker and handing it to her patient.

“Here – this should take the edge off.”

Murtagh sniffed the glass, then inhaled deeply. “Aye. It’s better than when we first made it – but it’s still enough to knock ye flat on yer back if ye’re no’ careful.”

Claire pressed the sides of the wound closer together. “So, will you be a bit more careful from now on? For me?”

He took a swig, exhaled, and then belched.

“Aye. Ye ken I’d do anything for ye, Claire.”

She nodded absently.

“Hey.” Now he nudged her side with the toe of his good foot. “That’s no’ the drink talking. That’s crabby old *me* talking. Aye?”

“Aye,” she echoed. “You’ve proved that often enough.”

Two more minutes, and then it was all done.

And Murtagh’s whisky was all gone. He handed the empty glass to Claire with a smile so wide that it reminded Claire of the Cheshire Cat illustrations in the book Uncle Lamb had given her for Christmas one year.

“Ye do mind me of Ellen, now and again.” He tilted his head, studying her as if with new eyes. “Foul mouth. Kind heart. Staggering to look at. And a heart so beautifully full of love that she doesna ken what to do wi’ it all.”

Claire flushed. They hadn’t spoken of Ellen since that night in the cave on the beach – a lifetime ago.

“So why would I no’ pledge myself to yer service? Why would I no’ heed every word ye say, Claire?”

Clearly he was waiting for an answer. All she could do was lay a gentle hand on his shoulder and kiss his sweaty brow.

“I’ll be right back, all right? Let’s get you settled in to bed upstairs. You’ll feel much better in the morning.”

And when she returned with Jamie, who helped his godfather stand up and offered his shoulders for support to walk out of the room and up the stairs, Murtagh blessed Claire with another beatific smile.

“More whisky?”

“Now?” Jamie’s brows rose skeptically. “Ye smell like the still house – God kens why Claire thought *that* was a good way to fix yer foot.”

“First bed. Then we can talk about more whisky.”

Then Murtagh FitzGibbons Fraser blew her a kiss, and for once in her life Claire Beauchamp Fraser was at a total loss for words.


	40. Chapter 40

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](https://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/160226603752/that-new-shifted-update-gave-me-all-the-da-jamie)

Interlude - The Surprise

Lallybroch, Spring 1753

* * *

Jamie wiped his sweaty brow on his damp shirtsleeve, frowning at the furrows neatly dug along about half of the field.

“Hold up!” he yelled to Murtagh, who was industriously hacking at the earth with his spade. His godfather paused, squinting in the rare spring sunshine, chest heaving with exertion.

“Ian!” Jamie called to his brother-in-law, who couldn’t participate in the digging but supervised from the edge of the field. “Ye’re sure we can space the potatos so closely together? We didna do that the last time – ”

“Yes, we can.” Ian shifted a bit as the peg of his wooden leg caught in a patch of softer soil. “I was reading Sir Walter’s book again last night, and it didna say anything about whether three inches instead of four wouldna be good for the plants.”

“One of the MacNabs was telling me the other day that they’d tried the three inches up at their croft,” Murtagh interjected, nudging Jamie with the handle of his spade. “And it didna seem to have an ill effect on the harvest.”

Ian hobbled closer to Jamie and Murtagh.

“Aye, but the soil is a bit boggier over at those crofts,” Jamie reasoned. “It can hold more moisture than ours can. I just want to make sure if we’re going through all the effort, we’ll still get as much as we can.”

“But if we dig three inches apart, we can add an extra row for the whole field. That’s worth the effort, no?”

Jamie pursed his lips, remembering how he and Ian had stayed up late the night before drawing out a map of the field and calculating exactly how to dig the furrows. The winter barley crop had been poor – so they needed to grow more food. And potatos were the easiest solution.

He’d finally slipped into bed close to midnight – Claire had gone upstairs long before, the weight of the bairn in her belly making her much more tired these days. She knew her time was coming, but had assured him just this morning that it would be a few weeks yet.

And that was why Jamie was being so conservative about the potatos. Claire had to eat. Brianna had to eat. Jenny and her army of bairns had to eat. And Murtagh, and Fergus, and the tenants.

So much responsibility – and times were still lean, seven years after Culloden. Things had been worse, to be sure – but they were a long way from being better.

He’d risen early – Claire had slept restlessly, it was so difficult for her to find a position that would remain comfortable. She dozed off right after dawn, so he had quietly untangled her from his arms, kissed the reassuring roundness of her belly, whispered “I love you,” and prepared for the day.

Ian pursed his lips. “How about we try it half wi’ the three inches and half wi’ the four? That way we can still have the extra row – ”

“Papa!!”

Jamie whirled to see seventeen-year-old Fergus cresting the hill.

“Papa! Quick! You must come!”

“Soldiers?” Murtagh raised his spade, ready.

Fergus stopped in his tracks – right at the edge of the field – and bent over, panting.

“No – no. Not that. It’s – Maman. La petite bairn – it is coming.”

Jamie dropped his rake and shot off, racing back to the house.

“Truly?” Ian hobbled across an untilled section of the field. “Is the bairn on its way?”

Fergus straightened up, still winded. “Yes – yes. The midwife just arrived. It is very, very quick this time. Tante Jenny thought she’d have to deliver it on her own. I told her I could help – but no, she sent me to fetch you.”

Murtagh clapped a solid hand on Fergus’ shoulder – the lad had grown to be taller than him, but he was still very slight of build. “That’s verra brave of ye, lad. Now let’s get back – the tatties can wait, aye?”

—

Fergus had left the front door open – and Jamie almost crashed into Mrs. Crook in the entryway.

“Upstairs,” was all she said.

Jamie bolted through the sitting room, taking the stairs two at a time.

Six-year-old Brianna Fraser – banished from the upstairs to a quiet corner of the sitting room – turned to her cousin Maggie.

“Why do ye think he’s so worrit? Everything will be fine.”

“Ye ken that Grannie Ellen died having a bairn?” Maggie focused on changing her rag doll’s dress. “He’s probably worrit because of that.”

“I didna ken that,” Brianna replied softly. Then – “Do ye think my Mam is going to die? I dinna think Da would let that happen.”

Maggie shrugged.

Brianna frowned, lay her doll down, and folded her fingers in her lap. Trying not to think about what was happening upstairs.

—

Ten stairs – then the turn. Then another ten – then the landing. Then six strides to their bedroom –

Claire screamed.

And Jamie almost ripped the door off its hinges.

His heart tore in two at the sight on the bed. Claire – naked, legs bent at the knees, stomach heaving along with her shallow breaths, face contorted in pain. Jenny and the midwife – the same sour-faced woman who had delivered Brianna and all the Murray bairns – standing on either side of the bed, alternately soothing and encouraging Claire.

Jenny looked over her shoulder – and he immediately saw her relax.

“Jamie’s here, Claire.” Her voice was a bit loud, almost as if she were speaking to a child.

But Jamie was already at Claire’s side, enfolding her as best as he could into his arms.

“Jamie?” Claire’s voice was weak – far away. Lost.

“Aye, Claire. I’m here.” He kicked off his boots and settled against the headboard, cradling her back to his front. Just as he had when she was delivering Brianna.

“When did it start?”

“Just about an hour ago.” Jenny gently kneaded the arch of Claire’s foot. “Claire wasn’t feeling too well after breakfast – ”

“Those – bloody – fucking – onions did it,” Claire panted. “Never should – have them with – breakfast…”

Then she curled against Jamie, body going rigid as another pain rippled through her middle –

“Oh, God. I have to push,” she groaned.

The midwife pulled back Claire’s leg and reached down. “Aye – ye’re open and ready, Claire. Push.”

She did.

It was awful – and there was a lot of blood – and Claire’s blunt nails drew stinging pain where she clutched Jamie’s arms. But he didn’t feel a thing – encouraging her, whispering to her, holding her as she drew from somewhere deep inside herself to push and push and push.

All was forgotten when Claire’s body released the final tension – and the midwife held up their blood-smeared, screaming, absolutely gorgeous son.

—

“Born in the middle of the day – he’ll always have lunch on his mind, poor lad.”

Claire held the baby’s head tighter in the crook of her elbow. Jamie darted one hand to wrap the blanket tighter around the baby’s impossibly tiny shoulders, gently touching the bitty chin and nose with the pad of one finger.

“Born early, too – means he’ll always be waiting on other people. Puir lad.”

“I can’t believe how easy that was, compared to the last time.” Claire settled back a bit against Jamie, oblivious to Jenny and the midwife sorting the soiled linens and tossing bloody water out the window.

“It didna look easy from *my* perspective,” he smiled, absolutely hypnotized by his son’s sleeping face.

“And I was so worried, too. But Jamie, when my water broke and you weren’t there – ”

“Hush. It doesna matter. Though Fergus told me he volunteered to stay behind and help ye?”

“He told me he’d helped with a birth before – at the brothel. I don’t even want to begin to imagine what that must have been like.”

“He’s a braw lad.” Jamie bent to kiss Claire’s shoulder. “We’re lucky that our wee boy will have such a good brother to look up to.”

The baby stirred, but then settled.

“Is he our William, then?” Claire asked softly. They had decided on the name as a tribute to Jamie’s beloved elder brother – but now that the baby was actually here…

“Aye. No’ Willie – that was my brother. No’ Will – that’s too English. William. A good, strong name.”

“Yes. Yes it is.”

Claire turned over her shoulder to face Jamie. “I do love you, Jamie. Thank you.”

He smiled – heart full to bursting with love and joy and pride.

“For what? I didna do any of the work.”

“For giving him to me. For being here with me. For – for this life.”

He bridged the gap between them in a long, long kiss.

“I love you.”

He butted his nose with hers.

“Can you get Brianna?”

He smiled even wider, kissed her forehead, and sprang off the bed and down the hall.

Not even a minute later, Brianna shyly poked her red curls around the doorframe.

“Come here, love,” Claire gently encouraged. “Come meet your brother.”

Then Jamie was there, guiding her around Jenny and the midwife and toward the bed.

Brianna gingerly stepped to Claire’s side and peered down at the swaddled bundle. The baby dreamed, quiet.

She furrowed her red brows and didn’t say anything for a long time.

Jamie opened his mouth to speak, but at a firm look from Claire thought twice about it.

So they waited. And waited –

“Hallo, wee William,” Brianna finally said, voice impossibly soft. “I’m your big sister. I’ll take care of ye.”

Then she bent to kiss his brow.

Jamie gripped Claire’s shoulder a little tighter.

So thankful for this life.


	41. Chapter 41

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](https://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/160982793232/for-shifted-could-we-please-get-jamie-and-claire)

Interlude – The Gift

Lallybroch, Hogmanay 1752-3

* * *

 

Claire shifted beneath the covers, restless.

Jamie could hear her dreaming. The nightmares had returned again – growing in intensity as their new bairn grew within her belly.

Sometimes it was the dream he had sent her back to Frank – the same dream that had troubled her so when Brianna was a newborn.

Sometimes it was dreams of walking on a dark, quiet Culloden Moor, wading through the bodies of fallen Highlanders – and then finding him cold and dead.

And sometimes it was a dream full of redcoats – burning the house, taking Brianna away, throwing Jamie into prison. Taking away everything she held dear.

He couldn’t tell what it was tonight – only that she would wake soon, and that she would need him to hold her, to listen to her, to support her.

The temperature had dipped significantly in the past week – and no amount of extra wood added to the fire could heat the room to his satisfaction. Brianna was like him – impervious to the cold – and only relented to sleeping in the same bed as two of her cousins after receiving orders from her parents and Murtagh to do so.

Claire, on the other hand – her fine skin was exquisitely sensitive, now that she carried the bairn.

In the circle of his arms, he felt her swallow – limbs tightening as she awoke.

“Ssshh,” he whispered. “I’m here. Ye were dreaming again.”

Slowly, slowly she rolled to face him – pressing the bulge of her belly against him.

“Can you light the candle, please?” Her voice was raw, rough, two hundred years away. “I need – I need to see you.”

Swiftly he kissed her forehead and turned on his side, striking one of the clever matches Claire had made and then coaxing the small flame to life.

He settled back against the pillow, meeting her tired eyes, pulling the quilt closer around her shoulders.

“I shouldn’t have had that extra helping of mincemeat – my stomach has been rolling all night.” Her whisky eyes glowed like a cat’s in the candlelight.

“Ach – it’s only Hogmanay once a year,” he smiled, stroking her cheek with the back of his knuckles. “Ye’re entitled to celebrate a bit. Lord knows we have plenty to be happy about in the new year.”

“I feel terrible that I didn’t even make it to midnight. Some Fraser I am.”

“Then we have something to look forward to next time when ye can hold our newest Fraser in yer arms to greet the new year.” He bopped the tip of her nose with his thumb – eliciting the smile he craved.

The bairn moved against his belly.

His mother’s rosebush scratched against the window.

“Hold still,” he murmured – fixing the moment in his memory.

She humored him – eyes locked. Sharing.

He smiled then – so wide – and softly pulled back the quilt, careful to keep her tightly wrapped up against the chill.

“Jamie? What – ”

He padded over to the fire, added a log, and then stooped to rummage through the trunk against the far wall.

“It should be past midnight by now. I have something for you.”

“Whatever for?”

“Are ye saying ye dinna want a gift from yer husband?” His voice was muffled – teasing.

She sat up against the headboard, hands spanning her belly, soothing their now quite active bairn.

“He’s awake, too,” she murmured, meeting Jamie’s eyes as he returned to bed. Smiling.

The feather mattress dipped beside her, and Jamie held out one clenched fist.

“Give me yer hand, Sassenach.”

She lay her right hand – palm up – on the mattress. And then felt a small bit of metal – warmed from Jamie’s hand – slide against her fingers.

Curious, she brought it closer to her eyes, squinting in the candlelight.

“Do ye need spectacles in yer auld age?” he whispered.

She ignored him – studying the worn but beautifully made brooch.

Silver – a bit tarnished – and old, but clearly well-made. Circular – shaped like a wreath – with carefully incised flowers and leaves. Stylized – figural and yet abstract. The work of a master craftsman.

“Jamie – I – ”

“It was my Da’s,” he whispered, reaching one tentative finger to trace the smooth surface. “Mam gave it to him as a wedding gift – she took it from her own father’s bedroom, at Leoch. My grandfather had had it made in Edinburgh, you see – and Mam didna think he would miss it.”

He so rarely spoke of Ellen Fraser – or the family she had so scandalously left behind – that Claire bit back her questions.

“When Mam met Da – it’s true they ran off together, that night. But Mam was practical – she kent weel that she’d have to bring some things wi’ her. So she had Murtagh help her prepare – he helped her gather a wee bag of her possessions, because she also kent that she would never go back to Leoch.”

“Murtagh?”

Jamie lifted his eyes to meet Claire’s startled gaze. “Oh, aye. He helped her escape wi’ my Da.”

Tears suddenly sprang to Claire’s eyes. “For he loved her so much that he helped her sneak away with the man she chose.”

Jamie bent to kiss her cheek. “Aye. And then followed behind, to witness their handfasting. Have I never told ye that before?”

She shook her head – but that was a story for another time. “But how does this brooch fit in to the story?”

“Mam was busy packing her personal things – but she realized she didna have anything to offer Da. So she asked Murtagh to find something of her own father’s to give him.”

“How in the hell did he get into the Laird’s chamber? I remember there were always men hanging about Colum’s room – ”

“Weel, in the auld days, they werena so careful – or else they wouldna have let their prized daughter sneak away wi’ a selkie, now, would they?”

She shook her head, amazed. “So Murtagh chose this?”

“Aye, he did. He knew my grandfather was wearing his best brooch, with his plaid that night – so he picked the second best. And that’s what Mam gave Da on their wedding night.”

“I guess I could make a joke about second best – ”

“Mam always did. But Da was just honored to have it. He wore it wi’ his plaid every day when I was growing up. And now I want our son to have it.”

Jamie splayed his hand over her belly – fingers tangling with hers – delighting in their bairn’s acrobatics.

“You’re so sure it’s a boy?”

His fingers tightened in hers. “Aye. Ye are, too – so is Brianna. And Jenny. And Mrs. Crook.”

Claire theatrically rolled her eyes. “Well then. That *must* mean it is so, if so many Frasers are convinced.”

He pursed his lips, and swallowed. Thinking.

“I ken the lad will never be able to wear his plaid out in the open – at least not while he’s a bairn, anyway. But I want him to learn our traditions – learn the way things were. The way they should be.”

His eyes lighted on the floorboard under which they had so lovingly stored their Fraser plaids in the dark days after passage of the Dress Act.

“The way it will be again, Jamie.”

His lips twisted in a wry half-smile. “Aye. Ye’d ken that now, wouldn’t ye?”

Gently she lay the brooch on her bedside table, and opened her arms.

He came, and rested so closely beside her – tangling his legs in hers.

“Thank you,” she whispered after a long while. “I want him to be raised as a true Fraser – in your own image, and with the memory of his grandparents. Surrounded by love and family.”

He burrowed his face in her neck – inhaled the hair at the base of her skull.

“I love you,” he whispered.

She held him close – as she would the baby, when it came.

“You are the breath in my body – my blood – my bone.”

She kissed the crown of his head.

“In this child – and in Brianna, Jamie – we are united. We will live forever now, you and I. And your parents – and my parents – they continue.”

He shifted against her, burying his face under her chin. Breath shallow.

“I need you.” His voice shyly vibrated against her sensitive skin – so soft she felt it more than heard it.

She undid the neck of her shift, and he opened the laces, and they softly, sweetly celebrated one more year together.


	42. Chapter 42

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](https://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/161811868608/hi-gotham-could-you-possibly-do-81-hold-still)

**Interlude – The Apprentices  
**

**Lallybroch, Winter 1762**

* * *

“Hold still, Mama.”

Claire Fraser – on her third day of bed rest – sighed, coughed, stopped fidgeting, and allowed her fifteen-year-old daughter to rub an oily mixture of goose grease, camphor, and wintergreen onto her bare chest.

“It’s yer own receipt – I ken it will make ye better,” Brianna soothed, gently spreading the grease with careful fingers. “And ye canna keep trying to get out of bed – yer fever just broke, and ye ken weel that Da willna let ye out of the room.”

From his perch at the foot of the bed, Jamie nodded gravely, slowly rubbing his thumb over the knuckles of his wife’s left hand.

“Is this payback for all the times I’ve made you stay indoors?” Claire wheezed, shifting beneath the heavy winter quilt. “For all the times I’ve doctored you?”

“Hush.” Brianna wiped her hands on the apron – Claire’s spare apron – tied around her waist. “Now breathe deep.”

Claire pursed her lips – feeling an absurd mix of annoyance and pride – and sucked in a deep breath.

Only to choke at the sudden block in her throat, spurring a fresh round of throaty, hacking coughs.

“Breathe, Mama.” Nine-year-old William – wearing another of Claire’s spare aprons, and standing at attention beside his sister – helped Claire sit up and quietly tied the top lace of her shift. “In and out, aye? In and out.”

Brianna’s eyes darted to her Da. His impassive face. His terrified eyes.

It was likely just a very bad cold – Brianna had run down all the symptoms with Claire, and they had excluded pneumonia, tuberculosis, and other more serious ailments. The treatment was simple – grease to open up the lungs, and hot fluids to open up the nose and throat.

And prayer, in Jamie’s case.

He had been so quiet since breakfast three days ago, when Claire had turned from her half-eaten bowl of parritch and coughed and coughed and coughed.

Brianna had sprung into action – quickly asking William to fetch warm water from the kitchen, helping Claire up the stairs – and only realized the situation was serious when Claire hadn’t even protested.

William had been her shadow these three days, helping her mix teas for Claire’s throat and make sure she had enough blankets – for this February was much colder than any she could remember. A number of her cousins had fallen ill – not to mention the tenants – and Claire had dutifully seen to all of them.

Not wanting her children to catch the sickness – whatever it may be – she had instructed them to wear the cloth masks she’d created for her own work.

Jamie hadn’t had the heart to repeat the familiar joke that the masks made them look like highwaymen.

It was serious.

Claire’s greased chest shone in the candlelight, heaving up and down in shallow pants as she struggled to breathe.

“Slowly, Mama.” William – so calm – rubbed the sweat-soaked back of Claire’s shift. Brianna darted over to the fire, gingerly removed the clay pot set over to the side, and used the hot water to steep the restorative mix of tea and herbs Claire always used with her patients.

So focused on her work, she didn’t realize Jamie had begun talking.

“That’s right,” he crooned, so softly, above Claire’s wheezes. “Easy, *a nighean*.”

The pace of Claire’s labored breaths slowed – and Brianna turned away from the fire, carefully balancing a steaming ceramic bowl.

Jamie wordlessly took it from her – heedless of the heat.

“Inhale the steam, Mama.” William adjusted the pillows behind her, providing more support to her lower back.  

“I – bloody – *know* that,” she rasped, dutifully closing her eyes and breathing directly over the bowl Jamie held.

In – and out. Then deeper – in and out.

“Now drink,” Brianna gently guided.

She did – a bit. Struggled to swallow, but then it became a bit easier.

A cycle she repeated until the bowl was half drained, when she turned to wipe her runny nose on her sleeve. William wordlessly fished a crumpled handkerchief from his apron pocket, and held it to her face.

Then she settled back a bit against the pillows – surveying her three strong-willed Frasers.

“I can’t believe it takes three of you to take care of me,” she teased.

The corners of Jamie’s mouth lifted into a tiny smile.

How beautiful.

William’s small dark brows furrowed. “We just - ”

“It’s all right, *a bhailach*,” his father interrupted. “We’re happy to do it, aye?”


	43. Chapter 43

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](https://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/162315387170/okay-shifted-promptwhat-if-claire-had-to-do)

**Interlude – The Surgery**

**Lallybroch, Winter 1761**

* * *

 

“I’m worried about Young Jamie.”

Jenny looked up from her knitting – a new scarf for Murtagh, to replace the one he’d mysteriously shredded during the last harvest.

“His throat, ye mean? It’s no’ gotten any better in the past week.”

Claire nodded. “Yes – it’s still so swollen, and none of my treatments are working.”

“Do ye ken why? It isna anything he’s eating – he grew out of that when he was a wee lad.” Jenny leaned over to fish a fresh skein from her basket, whisking away the cat with the back of her hand. Adso fluffed himself menacingly before slinking to the hearth and curling up in a sulky, furry pile.

Claire set down the herbal she’d been consulting – one of the very old books Mother Hildegarde had recently unearthed and sent to her from Paris. She was doing well, Mother Hildegarde – or as well as Claire could tell from the spidery writing. They hadn’t seen each other in more than fifteen years, but remained in regular contact. Mother Hildegarde rejoiced at any news of Brianna and William Fraser – said novenas in their honor – wished fervently to meet them one day.

“I believe it’s his tonsils. They’re at the back of the throat – his throat has been sore, yes?”

“Aye. But ye must have something ye can give him to heal it – ye canna cut the tonsils out to just remove the pain.”

“I can do just that.”

“What?” Ian piped up from the corner of the sitting room, placing a finger mid-page on his ledger. “What do ye mean, cut them out of him?”

Claire spread her hands wide across her lap. “I know of a way to do it, safely. It will be bloody, but quick – and he won’t feel any pain.”

“But how is that possible?” Jenny raised a skeptical eyebrow, first to her sister-in-law, then to her brother – silent beside his wife on the chaise across the sitting room.

“I can put him into a deep, temporary sleep. I’d need to make some ether – ”

“Ether? Ye mean the substance Aristotle says the world is made of?”

Claire playfully shoved her husband. “No, idiot – it’s almost like a sleeping potion. Just as effective as laudanum, but with none of the side effects.”

“Aye – that stuff tastes foul,” he agreed. “And it gives you the nightmare.”

Silently Claire’s hand shifted to Jamie’s – covering the fingers she had painstakingly healed in the aftermath of Wentworth – and at the abbey, when Jamie had spent a fair amount of time in a laudanum haze.

No – now was not the time.

“But I dinna understand, Claire,” Ian repeated patiently. “How can ye put him to sleep so quickly? And will he no’ wake up?”

“I can, and he won’t,” she promised.

Ian turned to his wife. “Will ye let Claire give it a try, J? Nothing else is working for him – none of her medicines have worked. And it’s eating away his strength – no lad should go through that.”

Jenny pursed her lips, gazing into the fire.

“It’s no’ that I dinna trust ye, Claire – only…weel. He’s my firstborn, aye?”

Jamie rose, crossed the room, and knelt before his sister, resting a gentle hand on her knee.

“Ye ken that Claire mended this hand for me, wi’ no laudanum, aye?”

“Yes, but – ”

“If there’s anyone who can do it, and do it skillfully – it’s her. Ye ken that fine.”

She sighed and nodded.

“I’ll take good care of him, Jenny – you can be there. Every step of the way.”

She swallowed, smiled quickly at her brother, and returned to her knitting.

“Well then. What do ye need us to do?”

–

It had taken four days to prepare.

First, the raw whisky. Then the precious iodine. And finally the lye – the three basic ingredients for ether. All ready to go – for the mixture had to be created and used almost simultaneously.

It had taken nearly as long to convince nineteen-year-old James Murray that his aunt wanted to put him to sleep and cut something out of his throat – and that he’d emerge from the ordeal none the worse for wear.

But the potent combination of Ian, Murtagh, and Jamie had worn him down – and he had grudgingly agreed.

Now he lay on the dining room table – stripped of linens, and scrubbed with raw whisky by eight-year-old William. Fourteen-year-old Brianna stood beside her mother, ready to assist.

Jenny stood beside her eldest child, a gently trembling hand resting on his shoulder. Soothing.

“It’s all right, Mam,” he said for the third time. “Auntie Claire kens what she’s about.”

At the foot of the table, Murtagh gravely nodded. Ian sat in a high-backed chair off to the side, together with Fergus, Maggie, Kitty, Janet, Michael, and wee Ian. And Mrs. Crook. And Rabbie MacNab.

“Aye, she does,” Jamie agreed from his spot across the table from Jenny. “Are ye ready, Claire?”

Claire straightened up a bit and bent over the sideboard, where she had assembled the three crucial ingredients. “Yes. Quiet, please? This is quite delicate work.”

Jenny whispered a decade of the rosary as the group watched Claire, Brianna, and William gently uncork the ingredients, carefully mix them in a bowl, and quickly capture the product in a separate covered bowl.

Then William darted over to his cousin, and placed a linen rag over his nose and eyes.

Young Jamie reached out his two hands – to be squeezed by his mother and uncle.

Gingerly, Brianna brought the covered bowl of ether to the dining table. Claire quickly doused her hands with whisky and sterilized her wee knives with the rest.

“All right, Jamie?” Her voice was clear – strong – a tone she rarely used, but which brooked no disagreement.

“Aye. Just be quick about it, aye?”

She smiled, and carefully poured the ether onto the rag.

Within ten seconds he was out cold.

“Lamp, please.”

William materialized at her side, holding a lamp – safely covered behind glass – up to Young Jamie’s face.

“Keep the rag wet, Brianna. He can’t come up.”

She nodded.

And Claire gently pried Young Jamie’s jaw open, and began cutting.

It was quick – and very, very bloody. Within two minutes she had placed a sizeable chunk of flesh in the bowl beside Young Jaime’s head.

“More, Brianna. He needs more.”

Dutifully she followed Claire’s instructions – fingers trembling.

Now Claire examined the rest of the throat – confirmed no more inflammation – and began the sutures.

In and out – in and out.

Lallybroch had never been so silent.

“That’s right – good. Almost done.”

Brianna added more ether.

William held the lamp a bit closer.

Claire tied off the suture and cut the string.

Then finally looked up at her audience.

Jenny – eyes locked on her son, mesmerized.

William – arms trembling with the weight of the lamp.

Brianna – bright head bent to her work.

The Murrays and Frasers and staff huddled against the wall, eyes wide with a mixture of fear and awe.

And Jamie – smiling so brightly, so proud.

“All right,” she swallowed, voice suddenly hoarse, body suddenly going lax as adrenaline flooded out of her system.

“All right,” she repeated. “Let’s get this young man up to bed.”

The room burst into enthusiastic applause and cheers.

Young Jamie woke up and groaned in pain.

–

In bed that night, Jamie cradled Claire close.

Young Jamie was healing under the watchful eyes of his mother and cousin William.

Now it was Claire’s turn to heal.

Jamie didn’t say anything, just pushed her face into her favorite spot on his chest, and counted her breaths.

“I didn’t think I could actually do it.”

He tsked. “And why is that?”

“I’ve never tried it before – it was risky. And I had to find materials here. And I had only done it a few times before – in nurse’s training.”

His thumb gently traced the bumps of her spine.

“And when I learned, it was the oldest method – the Williamson Method. Dating from the 1850s. Old-fashioned.”

He snuffed.

“Dinna look back. It worked, didn’t it?”

She sighed. “It did. I’m so very thankful that it did.”

He kissed her forehead.

“It’s good to know I can do that. In case it has to be you someday.”

He kissed the corners of her tired eyes.

“Hush. Dinna think of that now. Just think about our nephew, and how he will be well. Because of you.”

She exhaled, and leaned up to kiss him. So grateful.


	44. Chapter 44

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](https://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/162587998070/shifted-part-7-chapter-1)

**Part 7 - The Visitor  
**

**Lallybroch, Autumn 1762  
**

* * *

It was bright – mid-morning – and Claire had decided it was clean-up day.

Or, time for a periodic review of the herbs, liquids, bandages, and other medicines in her surgery. A few years ago she’d finally moved out of Jamie’s study into her own room down the hall. It was really nothing more than a glorified store room – no bigger than the bathroom in her London flat many years before (hence?) – but it was all hers. Jamie had creatively built several shelves and cabinets to create an organized space to store her wares. And just enough room for two people to stand – usually her and a patient.

But today Claire and Brianna shared the space. As Claire went through the various bottles and jars neatly stored in the shelves, she listed out the contents to Brianna, who recorded the name and quantity in one of Claire’s small ledgers. Then whatever she didn’t have they would gather outside in Claire’s small plot in the kailyard, or make a note of what Ian would fetch the next time he travelled to a city or village of some size.

Claire needed to do this task – eventually – but she’d insisted on doing it today. She hadn’t had much time alone with her daughter since she’d shared her secret – of when she came from. Both children seemed to have taken it well – or as well as could be expected – but Claire wanted to give Brianna an opportunity to ask about it away from her father and brother.

“Willow bark powder – two, no, three vials.”

“Willow bark powder, three vials.” Brianna’s quill scratched softly.

Claire shifted the stool further to the right. “All right – now we’ve got dandelion leaves, four packages. Actually, one is a bit moldy, so three packages.”

“Aye, three packages.” A pause. “What do ye use that for?”

“To relieve constipation.”

Brianna snorted. “Ye’re always able to say things like that so…so matter-of-fact. Most folk would rather burn of embarrassment than say that straight out.”

Claire grabbed the lantern and stepped off the stool to face her daughter. “And since when am I most folk, hmm?”

Brianna raised one red eyebrow and smiled. “Since never. That’s why Da and William and I love ye so much, ken?”

Claire smiled. “I ken.” She hesitated, then reached to take Brianna’s hand. “Do you have any questions about what we discussed the other day?”

“About the stones, ye mean?”

Claire nodded, and waited.

Brianna pursed her lips, thoughtful. “It’s – it’s hard to believe, but I think things make a wee bit more sense now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Weel – William has told me that ye use words he’s never heard before, or read anywhere. And ye’re not like any other woman I’ve ever known – even Auntie Jenny. Da said that in your own time, women have a lot more freedoms?”

“Yes. Women can own property, and become doctors, and vote for their government representatives. And choose whom to marry, and when to have children.”

“Truly?” Brianna gaped. “Ye can choose all of those things?”

Claire smiled. “Surely you know that most girls your age are out of school, married, or already have children of their own. Why do you think your father and I have always pushed for you to have an education? For you to marry for love, when you choose to, not because we forced you to?”

Brianna nodded, processing. “I always thought ye wanted me do those things because ye’re both educated. And that ye’ve never pushed me to court or to marry because the two of you were – were forced to marry. Not that ye don’t love each other – ye do – but it wasn’t at the time ye wanted.”

She squeezed her mother’s hand. “Da really respects you, doesn’t he?”

Claire smiled. “Yes. We’re equal partners in our marriage – we always have been. We trust each other. We don’t make any decisions without consulting each other. Because in the very beginning, when there wasn’t very much love between us – there was respect. And honesty. And those two things have carried us through many a trial. So.” She rubbed her thumb against Brianna’s. “We want you to be a strong woman, a confident woman, who knows herself and isn’t afraid of men. Now we just have to find you a nice young lad who won’t piss himself at the prospect of courting you.”

Brianna laughed. “Ye mean because Da won’t let any man get anywhere near me? Aye.” She looked down at their linked hands, and frowned. “What’s that on yer thumb?”

Claire pulled her wrist back, but Brianna gripped her fingers. “Mama?”

Claire sighed and held her hand out. Gently Brianna brought it closer to her face.

“Is that – a J?” Brianna asked softly.

“Yes.”

“Did you do that?”

“No. Your father did.”

Her brows furrowed. “He did? Why?”

“Because I asked him to.”

Gently Brianna released her mother’s hand. “Why?”

Claire licked her lips. “Honesty and respect have always been important between us. And love, of course. And touch.” She met Brianna’s gaze strongly.

“I’ve never really spoken about this with anyone – except your father, of course. Please don’t share it with anyone else? Not even William?”

Brianna nodded.

Claire smiled slightly. “On our wedding night – your father was a virgin.”

Brianna choked. “Truly?”

Claire’s smile widened. “Yes. I was in a position to know, after all.”

Brianna gulped. “Mama – really…”

“He was so nervous. And I was – well. I hadn’t wanted to marry him, but there it was. And it was really difficult for us to speak to each other, it was very awkward between us.” She paused, eyes far away. “But we found out that if we touched each other – all that awkwardness went away. We let our bodies do the thinking for us, and then the rest just came naturally from that.” She paused. “So. When I feel his touch on me, and he feels my touch on him, that’s when we truly feel alive. And brave. And strong. And now I can always feel his touch on me. And he can always feel my touch on him.”

“He marked himself, too?”

Claire smiled. “No. I did.”

Brianna shook her head. “The two of you, I swear. William says ye’re like the lads and lassies at one of Auntie Jenny’s gatherings, when the harvest’s in.”

Claire smoothed back Brianna’s hair. “I look at him and I see the man I married, almost twenty years ago. My greatest prayer is for you to find a man who will look at you that same way, love. It truly is a great joy to spend your life with someone like that.”

“So that’s why ye didn’t go back, then – because ye loved Da, and he loved you.”

Claire nodded. “I didn’t say this in front of William, but – I wasn’t widowed when I came here. I had a husband, back in my own time.”

“What? You what?” Brianna had to sit down on the other stool. “Ye had a husband? And ye left him?”

Claire sighed. “I didn’t choose to leave him in the first place. So when I tried to go back through the stones, right at the beginning – it was because I was trying to get back to him. But then I married your father – and I fell in love.” She closed her eyes and continued. “Brianna – this will be hard for you to understand, but – I realized that my love for Jamie was – is - something much deeper, much more meaningful, than the love I had for my husband. Your father is truly selfless in his love for other people. He became the blood and bone in my body. I couldn’t leave him. I couldn’t. So.”

Brianna nodded, processing. “And the second time – when he tried to send you away, when you were expecting me?”

Claire sighed. “It was such a dangerous time. We’d barely escaped Culloden. And he was convinced that things would get really, really bad in the Highlands – and me being English would just make me a target. And he thought he couldn’t care for me – or for you – in the way we both deserved. So he wanted me to go back, to live with my first husband, to raise you in a safer time.”

“But you chose to stay.”

“Of course I chose to stay. I told him that I couldn’t live without my heart. He is my heart. And I couldn’t deny him the joy of you.”

“Mama – ” Brianna choked.

Claire’s eyes opened. Her heart stuttered once she saw the wetness on her daughter’s cheeks. Swiftly she gathered her into her arms, shushing her. Brianna settled her head on her mother’s shoulder, arms holding her tightly.

“I feel so bad – I kept you from going home,” she sniffed.

Claire ran a soothing hand up and down Brianna’s back. “Nonsense. I would have always chosen to stay. I couldn’t leave him. And I can’t even imagine leaving him now. Under any circumstance.”

Brianna drew a deep breath, and let her mother hold her.

“Mama?”

“Hmm?”

“There aren’t many men in this world like Da, are there?”

Claire smiled. “No, love. There aren’t.”

Brianna held her mother tighter. “How do I find one like him?”

Claire gently pulled back and looked straight into her daughter’s eyes. “You will. He’ll come into your life when you least expect it. I should know.”


	45. Chapter 45

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](https://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/162861678420/shifted-part-7-chapter-2)

**Part 7 - The Visitor  
**

**Lallybroch, Autumn 1762**

* * *

“There’s been a stranger in the village these past few days.”

“Really? Where’d you hear that?”

Jenny’s eyes stayed trained on her knitting. “Weel, one of the lads at school told Katherine, and Katherine told Young Jamie, and Young Jamie actually met him yesterday.”

“Any idea where he’s from?” Claire turned the page of her herbal and continued transcribing the receipt for a salve to soothe aching joints. She had been tinkering with different ideas for how to improve the hand cream she’d made for Jamie – most of which he’d used up by now – so that it was not only fragrant but more effective.

“He’s Scots, from the sound of it. But a queer kind of Scots – Young Jamie said that he used words he’d never heard anyone use before.”

Claire stilled. “Did he say what, exactly?”

Jenny paused to rearrange the balls of yarn in her knitting basket. “No – ye can ask him at supper tonight, I suppose.”

Something cold ran down Claire’s spine – but before she could ask another question, William darted into the parlor.

“Mama! Mrs. Crook says she needs ye – one of the servants has burned her arm in the kitchen.”

Claire sighed and rose. “Fetch me the white jar from my surgery, please, love. I’ll go take a look.”

—–

“I’ll go wi’ ye tomorrow,” Jamie said quietly, stroking her shoulder with his thumb.

Young Jamie hadn’t revealed much at supper – just that the stranger was, quite literally, tall, dark and handsome. Scots, but not from the Highlands. Educated, definitely. Clearly a city man, not a farmer.

And he had been asking whether there was an English healer in the area named Claire.

“For once I won’t argue with you,” she said softly. Her right hand rested in the center of his chest, body flush with his side. “Brianna told me today that she’d always known there was something different about me, in the way I speak. That I use words she’d never heard before, or read before.”

“William told me the same thing.”

“That’s exactly how Young Jamie described this stranger. That he used words he’d never heard before.” She paused. “Do you think – could it be another person like me?”

Jamie’s hand stilled and he tucked her tighter against his side. “I suppose anything is possible, Sassenach. But I won’t leave ye to go meet this man, unprotected. I dinna like how he’s asking for ye when he’s clearly not wounded. And if he’s come from your own time, weel.”

She sighed. “I suppose you know where he’s been staying, then?”

He smiled. “No’ much ever gets past me – the tenants always feel amiss when there’s a stranger in the neighborhood.” He paused, thoughtful. “Though when I think about it, they still feel amiss about you. So.”

He lowered his body so they were face to face on the pillow, noses touching. His hips moved to be flush with hers. Slowly, slowly his lips met hers.

He twined their fingers together, pressing his C to her J.

Claire gasped against his lips. He kissed her again.

She pulled back after a long moment. “When we touch there,” she breathed softly, licking her lips, “every time, it feels like – like I’m about to peak.”

He eased their joined hands downward and gently guided himself inside her. They both gasped.

“Slow, _mo nighean donn_ ,” he whispered. “Give me all your bonny noises. And know I will never, ever let anyone harm ye.”


	46. Chapter 46

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](https://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/163092589117/shifted-part-7-chapter-3)

**Part 7 - The Visitor  
**

**Lallybroch, Autumn 1762**

* * *

Claire would have preferred to share a horse, but Jamie insisted she take her own.

“As much as I like feeling ye so close, Claire, I canna afford to do that today,” he’d told her as they walked to the stables. “Ye need to appear to be as strong and confident as I ken ye are. And I willna be able to focus if yer lovely arse is pressed against my cock for the whole ride there.”

Jamie led their horses to a small house not too far from the center of the village. He dismounted, and Claire followed suit, taking the reins of Jamie’s horse. He strode up to the front door and knocked.

Claire recognized the woman who answered – she’d looked after her son’s broken arm the previous spring. But she’d never been inside the house – the woman had brought the lad to Lallybroch, one time when her husband had visited to have a word with Jamie about something or other.

“Good day. I understand ye’ve got a visitor – could your wee lad come mind the horses?”

The woman squinted in the sunlight. “Aye.” She turned and bellowed, “John! Come mind the laird’s horses, aye?”

Young John – aged ten or so – darted out of the house, having obviously regained the full use of his arm in the four months since Claire had seen him last. She thanked the boy and quickly stepped to stand beside Jamie.

“Milady,” the woman nodded her head. “I expect ye’ll be wanting to see him, then?” She eased back from the door and extended one arm to welcome them inside.

Jamie’s hand settled at the small of Claire’s back, gently pushing her forward. _I’m here_ , his touch said to her. _I’m right here, and I willna leave your side_.

Claire followed the woman to the small sitting room, where a man sat on a stool before the fire, scribbling in a book. Turning at the sound of footsteps, he set down the book and rose to greet the visitors.

He was young, clean-shaven. Fairly well-dressed, if a bit grubby. His shoulder-length hair, a dark, glossy black, was bound back from his head. And eyes, so startlingly green, gazed back at Claire.

“My name is Claire Fraser,” she said, feeling Jamie behind her. “I am a healer. I understand you’ve been looking for me.”

The man squinted and cocked his head, appraising. Jamie clearly did not like this, and stepped a bit closer to Claire, hand pressing to the small of her back.

“It’s you,” he said softly.

“Excuse me?”

The man took a step closer to Claire. “It’s you,” he repeated. “Claire Randall.”

Claire blinked. Jamie curled his arm around her shoulder and angled her into his side.

“Who the hell are you, then?” she hissed, feeling Jamie vibrate against her shoulder.

The man smiled and held out one hand. “Roger MacKenzie Wakefield. We’ve met – at the Reverend’s, in Inverness – only I was about four the last time.”

Claire dumbly stared at his hand. Her heart clenched at the twentieth-century gesture.

Wakefield. The Reverend Wakefield. Frank. Mrs. Graham.

It all came tumbling back. The manse, the scent of the Reverend’s tobacco. The hum of voices as the Reverend and Frank discussed the Jacobites.

Frank.

Frank.

Frank.

Claire crumpled against Jamie in a dead faint.


	47. Chapter 47

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [origially posted on tumblr](https://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/163405477649/shifted-part-7-chapter-4)

**Part 7 - The Visitor  
**

**Lallybroch, Autumn 1762**

She revived almost immediately, though – grateful that Jamie had been too focused on breaking her fall to punch Roger Wakefield in the mouth.

“I’m all right – I just need some air,” she gasped, bracing her arms against Jamie’s solid chest.

“Are ye sure, Sassenach?” He gripped her tightly. “Can ye please get her some water?” he asked the lady of the house. Terribly perplexed by the exchange, she quickly scurried out of the room.

“Give me that stool, lad,” he addressed the stranger. Startled back into the moment, Roger Wakefield dragged the stool closer to Claire. Jamie eased her down onto it, gripping her shoulders tightly.

“Now.” Jamie looked the man straight in the eye. “Just who in hell are ye?”

“You’re James Fraser – the Jacobite,” Roger said softly. “I’ve seen your pardon.”

Jamie’s brows knit. “I am. But what do ye mean, ye’ve seen the pardon? There are only two copies I know of, and I’ve got one of them.” One of Claire’s hands pressed on top of his, and he gripped her fingers gently. Strength.

“I’ve so much to tell. But perhaps not here?” Roger nodded at the woman, who had returned with a horn cup full of water. Claire thanked the woman and sipped the water slowly, thoughtfully.

“Aye. We live up at the main house – can ye ride a horse?”

Roger snorted. “Of course I can ride a horse. Do ye mean for me to come with ye, then?”

Jamie nodded. “Aye, I dinna want her riding on her own just now. Let’s go.”

Claire set down the now-empty cup and took Jamie’s hand, rising to her feet. She regarded Roger from this closer angle. His clothes were worn, but had obviously belonged to someone else, as they were slightly too large. His hands were soft – not the hands of one accustomed to doing manual labor. Clearly he hadn’t been in this time for very long.

“How long have you been here, Roger?” she asked softly.

Roger smiled ruefully. “Three months, give or take. I don’t know how you’ve been able to manage almost twenty years.”

She turned to her husband and met his eyes squarely. “This is how.”

———- 

 

They rode quickly, silently, back to Lallybroch. Claire sat wedged in front of Fraser, Roger trotting alongside. All three silently processed what had happened and prepared for what was to come.

Roger caught snatches of the _Gaidhlig_ spoken between the Frasers – his low, sonorous tones, her halting, accented ones. He still hadn’t adjusted to the form of the language spoken in this area, in this time – so different from what he’d studied at Oxford – but it had been enough to get by.

_Do you truly know him?_

_Yes, myself and my first husband met him when we visited Inverness. Right before I travelled._

_Why do you think he’s here?_

_I do not know. I am fearful._

_You have no need to fear, my heart. You know I will take care of it. And take care of you._

Roger hadn’t really known what to expect if – or when – he found Claire. He knew she had married Fraser, and become a healer of some renown in the area. She was still a remarkably beautiful woman – her face was nearly identical to the photograph he’d seen in the Reverend’s study, taken just days before her disappearance.

He’d had no idea what to expect with Fraser. It was one thing to find the deed of sassine, the pardon, the ledgers from Broch Tuarach with Fraser’s name. He had assembled a mental picture of what the man must look like – but it certainly paled in comparison to the reality. Fraser was literally larger-than-life – part warrior, part laird, part farmer, part politician.

And, based on what he’d observed in their short time together, a completely devoted and protective husband. Claire couldn’t have been clearer that he was the reason she had stayed, and that he had been her strength during her time here. And it also couldn’t have been clearer that she was Fraser’s source of strength as well.  

He must be a singular man to have captured the love of that remarkable woman.

Fraser drew his horse up short as they crested a hill, now in sight of the house. He turned to Roger. “This is our home,” he said slowly, deliberately. “This is my family’s land. You are a guest here. Dinna forget that, Mr. Wakefield.”

Roger swallowed. “I won’t.”

It wasn’t menace that underlay Jamie’s words. It wasn’t a clear threat, either – but a warning. Cross a line, say too much, upset Claire – Jamie would harm him. Or kill him, if necessary.

Roger kicked his horse to follow Fraser’s. He doubted Frank Randall would have made a similar comment – or had ever possessed a similar depth of feeling for Claire.

Slowly he began to understand why she had stayed.


	48. Chapter 48

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](https://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/163674616614/shifted-part-7-chapter-5)

**Part 7 - The Visitor  
**

**Lallybroch, Autumn 1762**

* * *

 

A hurried introduction to various nieces and nephews while the servants scurried about – and then the three of them were in Jamie’s study. Claire settled behind Jamie’s desk and gestured for Roger to take the chair in front of the desk. Jamie bolted the door behind them and stepped over to Claire, standing beside her and resting an arm around her shoulders.

“Now,” she said softly. “Tell me why you are here.”

Roger licked his lips. “Your husband looked for you. He found you.”

Claire’s hand flew to her mouth, wordless.

“Go on.” Jamie’s voice was low, steely.

Roger watched Claire’s chin crumple, but her gaze remained strong on his, her cheeks flushed.

“He kept in touch with the Reverend over the years – would come to visit every once in a while when I was growing up. Within a year of your – disappearance – he came to peace with the fact that you’d never be found.” He rubbed the back of his neck idly. “Mrs. Graham – he’d gotten to speaking with her every time he visited. He became more and more open to the idea that you’d, well, stepped through time. And that maybe you were in a place that you couldn’t come back from.” He shrugged. “It’s as good of an explanation as any, I suppose.”

She nodded quietly.

“Frank moved back to Oxford – began teaching again. Became a Jacobite scholar – the ’45, Bonnie Prince Charlie and all that.”

“And all that,” Jamie said softly, shaking his head. He rubbed Claire’s shoulders. “Go on.”

“He had you legally declared dead, Claire, in 1949. You’d been gone four years, without a trace.” Roger watched as she sighed and closed her eyes.

“Frank married again, Claire. In 1950. She’s a librarian at the university – they met when she helped him with his research.”

Claire took in a deep breath. “Do they have any children?”

“No. No, they don’t.” Roger dropped his eyes and starred at his hands. Claire pulled back and looked up at Jamie with a trembling smile. His troubled eyes relaxed.

“I ended up studying under him at university,” Roger continued. “He and the Reverend got a great kick out of it. I was helping him with some research, two years ago, focusing on how the British Army gave amnesty to proven rebels right after the Rising. And I found Jamie’s pardon.”

Jamie cleared his throat. “Was he still looking for her, then?”

Roger shook his head. “No. But when I found the deed of sassine where you signed over this place to your nephew, and saw Claire’s name on the document…” He swallowed and raised his eyes. Claire’s fingers twined with Jamie’s on her shoulder, reassuring him.

“So I showed it to him – and I thought he was going to faint, right there. We knew it was you, Claire. We’d found you in 1746.”

Jamie tilted Claire’s chin to lock his eyes with hers. His free hand gently traced her cheekbones. It was an intimate gesture – one that spoke of deep feeling born of many years of a shared life – and Roger suddenly felt like an intruder on a very private moment.

Something unspoken was communicated between them, and Jamie gently released Claire’s face, sliding his hand down to rest on her other shoulder.

“So why come, then?” Claire asked softly. “Just to bring me news of Frank? Because he’s clearly moved on from me – and I hope you can tell that I’ve clearly moved on from him.”

Roger sighed. “Once we figured out what had truly happened, I started researching whether I could do it myself. To come back, I mean.”

Claire’s brow furrowed. “How on earth do you research something like _that_?”

Roger shrugged. “Spoke with Mrs. Graham, for one thing. Met with some local druids, if you can believe that. Did some research at the Inverness newspaper to find other unexplained disappearances in the vicinity of the stone circle.” He paused. “Frank tried to go back – he went to the stone circle first.”

Jamie started. “Is he here? Did he follow ye?”

Claire rose and rested a hand on Jamie’s chest. “Jamie – no – ”

“Claire.” He grabbed her hand. “If he’s here, I must…I must speak wi’ him. I-”

“He’s not here,” Roger said softly. “He’s dead.”

Claire crumpled into the chair. “What?”

“Heart attack, six months ago.”

She closed her eyes. Jamie stilled beside her but his body tensed, still coiled for action.

She waited a moment to speak – and when she did, her voice was soft, weary, but firm. “I will ask you again, Roger. Tell me why you are here.”

“To see you, of course. To see if it was really you – and to see how you’d lived your life. And I wanted to see if it was possible to – to actually live for a while in the time I’ve spent the past few years of my life studying, getting to know so well.”

She didn’t respond for a long while, and he thought she’d fallen asleep.

Suddenly her eyes opened – cold. “You’re a bloody tourist,” she hissed.

“A tourist? No, I’m a historian. I wanted to see if it was possible. It is possible, for me. I know it’s not possible for everyone. Frank couldn’t do it. So I did it – to honor him. And I’ll stay here for a while – I found you, and delivered the news to you as I’d intended. And then in a bit I’ll go back.”

She rose and rested her arms on the desk, leaning across it, towering over him. “Do you just mean to come here and play around for a while, then? To study us like we’re some kind of science experiment? Test out your theories?”

He leaned back slightly. “No, I don’t mean that. I -”

“You can’t just drop in and out of a time like this. It’s dangerous, every day. You have no idea how dangerous it can be here.”

He raised one eyebrow, challenging. “You’re safe on this estate, with your husband and his family to protect you.”

Jamie laid a hand on her back, and she straightened. “You fucking naïve idiot,” she said slowly, deliberately, voice full of ice. “You can’t just play around. I’ve seen acts of violence and absolute depravity that would make your skin crawl. Men have tried to rape me. I was put on trial for witchcraft. I have fought a war. I have seen men die from simple infections and women die in childbirth. Soldiers have assaulted me and unjustly seized my family’s property. I have killed. I have done violence. I have aided and abetted criminals. I lost a child.”

She breathed short, shallow breaths. “And I’m only a woman. I won’t even begin to tell you what Jamie has been through, in his life. You have no idea how dangerous it is to be a man here, Roger.”

“But you’ve chosen to stay, Claire – you never went back. And I assume the two of you had – have – children together, yet you’ve chosen to raise them here.” He rose and rested his own hands on the desk, eyes level with hers. “All those things you’ve said may be true – and still you’ve chosen to stay. Why?”

Claire swallowed, trying to settle herself. “Because I’m a realist. I know what this world is capable of, and I try my best to prepare myself for it.” She breathed in and out, deeply. “And I have Jamie. I met him the day I fell through the stones. I married him a few weeks later. He is my protector. He has a sense of honor that men in your time don’t. He’s kept me safe. He’s kept our family safe.” Her eyes pierced his. “At a personal cost so great that it’s difficult to comprehend. He has sacrificed many times so that I didn’t have to. So that our children didn’t have to.”

Jamie lay his hand atop Claire’s on the desk. Roger startled to see it had been mangled – broken badly – clearly many years ago. That proved Claire’s point, then.

Roger nodded, processing. “Did you never want to go back, then? Never want to go back to Frank?”

She sighed. Roger watched Jamie’s fingers curl around hers. “I did at first. But I wasn’t sure if I could get back – to go back to that time. And then I realized that I didn’t want to. Even with the pain, the heartbreak, the violence, the danger.” She sighed. “And now I’ve been here so long that this is my time. Your time – it must be 1964? – it’s not my own. My life is here.”

Roger slowly sank back into his chair. “And not with Frank?”

She shook her head. “Roger, I love Jamie. He is my breath, the blood and bone in my body. He understands me – truly understands me. Frank, bless him, never did. It’s as simple as that.”

Silence stretched between them.

Jamie finally broke the tension. “Will ye stay wi’ us, then? For tonight at least?”

Roger met Jamie’s wary eyes. “If you’ll have me.” He tried and failed to meet Claire’s gaze. “Will you introduce me to your family?”

Jamie nodded. “Aye, I will. Though God knows how.”


	49. Chapter 49

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](https://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/163943706437/shifted-part-7-chapter-6)

**Part 7 - The Visitor  
**

**Lallybroch, Autumn 1762**

In the end, introducing Roger as someone from Claire’s past hadn’t surprised the family too deeply – except for Brianna and William, of course, who knew full well that their mother didn’t truly have a past.

Dinner had been pleasant enough. Claire watched Roger clearly enjoy himself, seated at the place of honor at Jamie’s right, Jenny on his other side, Young Jamie across from him. Roger pleasantly inquired about the size of the estate, its agricultural output, and the features of the nearby countryside. He’d explained himself to be a scholar of some sort, born to Scots parents but raised by an English uncle after being orphaned as a small child. This being his first journey back to Scotland since he could remember, he was trying to re-acquaint himself with the land of his forefathers.

It didn’t escape Jamie’s notice that Roger was also trying to acquaint himself with Brianna. She sat diagonally across from him, in between two of her female Murray cousins, and only directly addressed him a few times. The lad had spent a good deal of time stealing glances at her. And from what he saw, Brianna had stolen more than a few glances of her own.

So. Better to puzzle it out with Claire before taking any action.

Claire sat stiffly on his other side throughout dinner, barely touching her food. It must have been the hell of a shock – not just to meet another person from her own time, but someone she knew, who bore news of her first husband. The man with Randall’s face. From time to time, Claire still woke from dreams where she was living as his wife again – and only Jamie’s touch could bring her back.

His hand found hers under the table, pushing the C on his left thumb against the J on her right thumb. She squeezed his hand tightly, desperately.

 _I am here_ , his fingers told hers _. We will figure this out._

And much later, after whiskey and toasts and Jenny finding Roger a place to sleep, Jamie and Claire slowly ascended the stairs to their bedroom. They paused to kiss their children goodnight before locking their door and gently stripping off each other’s clothes. Jamie took Claire’s hand and led her to their bed. He folded back the covers, slipped in beside her, and drew the blankets up over their heads.

Nestled in their dark cocoon, he drew her to his chest and she wrapped her legs around him, drawing her hips flush with his. She buried her face in his neck and breathed deeply. Gently he drew a hand up and down her back, murmuring quietly in the _Gaidhlig_.

They lay quietly for what could have been minutes or hours, savoring the feeling of skin on skin. Claire breathed Jamie in, and he rested his lips against her forehead.

Claire’s mind raced – full of so many disjointed thoughts and images.

Frank’s motorcar, the same car she’d driven to the stone circle. Whatever had happened to it? She’d left the top down when she parked at the stones. Had the beautiful leather seats been ruined by the time Frank found it?

Young Roger, adorable in a brown sweater and polished shoes. Where had she seen those eyes before?

The fragrant oolong tea leaves Mrs. Graham had read for her so long ago.

The rectangular leather suitcase she’d brought with her to Scotland, stuffed with her few worldly possessions. Dear God, she’d even packed her wedding portrait with Frank.

And then the feeling of falling through the stones. Seeing Randall. The scent of damp in Murtagh’s plaid as he held her in front of him on his horse.

And Jamie’s eyes, glowing in the firelight, the first time she’d touched him.

So the loop ran over and over in her mind. This time, that time. Frank, Jamie. Roger. Randall. Dougal. Murtagh.

And Jamie’s voice – her anchor, whispering into her hair in the _Gaidhlig_.

“ _Hush, my heart. I am here. I am with you. Hush. Come back to me, my love. My blood. Mother of my son and daughters. How I love you.”_

After a long while, Claire blinked hard and returned to herself. She raised her head and drew her nose along Jamie’s chin in the darkness. Her fingers twined in his hair and she brought his mouth down to hers.

A bit later she pulled back, breathless. He butted his nose against hers. “Are ye back, then?” he whispered.

She nodded, resting one palm flat on his back, thumb caressing his scars.

“What’s upsetting ye more – that Frank marrit again or that wee Roger sees the stones as playthings?”

She sighed. “I shouldn’t feel guilty about anything Frank did after I – after I left. I did love him, Jamie. I’m glad he found happiness.”

Jamie gathered her closer into his chest and hitched her leg around his hip. She gasped as he eased into her, and he smiled against her lips.

 _The Englishman never made her feel like this_ , he reflected. _He never felt her belly when it was rounded wi’ child, or kissed its silver marks after she delivered a healthy bairn. He never lay wi’ her side by side like this in bed, joined as one flesh, sharing fears and hopes and dreams_.

“You are my happiness,” he breathed, tilting his hips to penetrate even deeper.

He felt her smile and hum against his lips. “I never regret staying. I can’t leave you, Jamie. I can’t. My heart couldn’t take it.”

He pushed in and out, gently. “You are my heart,” he breathed into her ear. He felt her cheek flame against his.

“More, Jamie. I need more.”

Still he kept up a slow, shallow pace, one hand firm on her hip. His thumb settled in her navel, digging into the indentation, and he felt her belly quiver.

“You are all I want,” he whispered. “Each time is never enough.”

She swallowed, throat dry. “Jamie,” she gasped. “More. I need more.”

He smiled and bit her chin, stilling within her. “Ask me again.”

Her back arched, eyes closed. He felt her nipples press up against his own as she panted.

“No, you bloody Scot,” she laughed. He moaned at the sensation. She seized the back of his head and kissed him, hard.

He rolled on top of her and gripped her hips. She wrapped her legs around him. He brought his forehead against hers, and licked a bead of sweat from the tip of her nose.

“I said more, Jamie. Harder,” she panted.

He drove home once, hard. She cried out.

“More.”

He did so again. And again. And again. Driving all thoughts of her time and his time from her mind – until all that was left was her, and him, and their love for each other, shielded from the world.

Much later they lay in the dark, side by side, blankets pooled around their waists. Jamie held Claire’s right hand between his, resting on his stomach, fingers twining and untwining.

“Did ye see the way wee Roger was looking at Brianna tonight?”

She squeezed his hand. “Yes. He seemed quite taken with her.”

He raised her wedding ring to his lips for a kiss. “What do ye want me to do about it, then? He said he wasna going to stay for verra long.”

Claire settled her head on Jamie’s shoulder. “Maybe Brianna will give him a reason to stay.”

“Mmphmm.” Jamie turned to kiss her forehead, unconvinced.

“He’ll treat her right,” Claire said at length. “He comes from a time where men really do respect a woman’s wishes.”

“Aye,” Jamie said softly. “But it’s my daughter, ken? I dinna care how he feels toward all women – I only care how he feels and behaves toward my women.”

Claire sighed against him. “Let me speak with her in the morning, before breakfast. See what’s on her mind.”

“I suppose.” He yawned widely, gathering her against him and drawing the blanket up over their shoulders. Claire settled her head closer to him on the pillow. “Now then. Sleep, _mo nighean donn_. Let me protect yer dreams.”


	50. Chapter 50

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](https://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/164212650227/shifted-part-7-chapter-7)

**Part 7 - The Visitor  
**

**Lallybroch, Autumn 1762**

* * *

 

Jamie jerked awake in the half-light of dawn, blinking harshly to shake off the dream.

He couldn’t remember the details – only that he was standing at Craig Na Dun, holding Claire’s knit shawl. Claire herself was nowhere to be found, but he didn’t need to be told that she’d gone away. Gone back, through the stones – and the bairns gone with her, leaving him behind. Leaving him alone.

Within the circle of his arm, Claire stirred. He stilled, not wanting to wake her. Not wanting her to know the foolishness of the dream. No matter how many times she told him – no matter how many times she showed him – the fact remained that his biggest fear was losing her. Living a life without her – without half of his heart. It would kill him.

He knew she had had those dreams, too – especially right after Brianna was born. But the years had passed – and her comfort in this time had grown – and it had been a long time since she’d woken from one of those dreams.

Jamie inhaled the messy curls at the crown of Claire’s head. They were one flesh, after all. They had the same joys, hopes, fears. No wonder that they would share the same dreams – or nightmares.

No point in getting back to sleep now. Claire would be worried – preoccupied – as soon as she woke up. It pained him to see that – to see her forced to think, again, about a life she’d chosen to leave behind such a long time ago. Deep down, she still felt twinges of guilt about it – especially leaving Frank. Jamie didn’t begrudge her those feelings. But yesterday had brought everything back to the surface. And proven that, even two decades later, some matters and issues still needed to be resolved.

It was his duty as Claire’s husband, then, to take her mind off of the situation. Give her something to smile about, even briefly. Ground her to the here and now – not the past, not the future.

Jamie smiled and gently withdrew his arm from underneath Claire’s side. He balanced on his hands over her, edging down her supine body and drawing back the blanket as he went. His breath quickened against her navel as he set to kissing her awake.

 —–

William Fraser was an early riser. Unlike his sister, who would sleep all day if it were possible, William never saw the value of lying abed when there were always so many things to do. So many things to learn, to think about.

Such as Mr. Wakefield, the dinner guest. He clearly knew Mama – but from where? And from when? William knew that she’d been in this time for nearly twenty years, and the stranger couldn’t be much older than Young Jamie. So just how did Mama know him?

He tossed and turned under his blankets, careful not to wake the two cousins with whom he shared the bed. Young Ian, beside him, slept like a rock. But Michael, on Ian’s other side, was always the more sensitive sleeper. Many mornings he had given William a difficult time for waking him so early.

William sighed. Da, then – he always rose early. He would know more about Mr. Wakefield. He would know what to do. Quietly he turned back the quilts, tugged his drooping stockings up above his ankles, and padded down the hall to his parents’ bedroom.

 —–

Claire gasped, digging her fingers into the hair at the base of Jamie’s neck, pressing him closer against her. Tilting her hips, she dug her heels into the mattress.

So good. So close –

Suddenly she felt a rush of cool air as Jamie lifted his head from between her thighs. His eyes, blazing, met hers. He spoke – Claire furrowed her brow in a desperate attempt to focus. She opened her mouth, but her lips were parched – she could not speak.

“ –only be one of the bairns, Sassenach. Shall I get the door?”

Panting, Claire weakly pushed Jamie’s head back down. His eyes smiled and he returned to his work.

Had it ever been this good between them? She was so close –

Suddenly her back arched – and she felt another rush of cool air as Jamie raised himself up over her. He kissed her, swallowing her scream and smiling against her lips as he felt her shudder and go absolutely boneless.

Her mind flailed about until it reconnected with her body. She opened her eyes to meet Jamie’s smile. He kissed the end of her nose.

“It must be William – Brianna would have stopped knocking after the first go-round.” He kissed her chin. “Are ye back then, Sassenach?”

Claire swallowed, throat thick. “Good morning to you too,” she croaked.

He grinned widely. “Oh, good.” He rose and pulled the sheet up to her shoulders. “And just think – ye still have the whole rest of the day.”

“Jamie – ” she rasped, watching her husband cross the room, naked. “What if it’s not – ”

Jamie turned the lock and cracked the door open. “What is it, William?”

“I need to talk to ye, Da.” Her son’s voice was muffled by the door – but even now, Claire could tell he was serious.

Jamie opened the door enough for William to slip through before re-bolting it. He rested a hand on his son’s shoulder, gently holding him in place.

“Now then. Tell me.”

William’s eyes darted to his mother – who was shrugging into a shift – and back to his naked father. Had he interrupted something? He knew what passed between husbands and wives in bed – Mama had made sure to tell him last year, and he knew his parents seemed to _do that_ more often than most folk their age –

“Is Mama Mr. Wakefield’s mother?”

Jamie gaped. “ _What?_ ”

William gulped, pinned to the spot by his father’s piercing blue eyes. “He clearly comes from Mama’s time, and Mama said she kent him, and he said he was orphaned when he was a lad, which was when Mama came here.”

By now Claire had slipped out of bed to stand beside Jamie. William backed up a bit against the door and tore his eyes from Jamie’s to his mother’s. “Did he come to take ye back, Mama? Because I willna let him. Ye canna leave Da.”

Claire knelt and opened her arms. The lad fell into her shoulders and clutched her tight.

“No, I’m not his mother,” Claire said softly, gently stroking William’s hair. “I knew him when he was a little boy, but what he told you is true – his parents did die when he was small.”

Jamie knelt and wrapped two big arms around them both. “Is that what was worrying ye last night at supper, _a bhailach_? That yer Mam would leave us?”

William shuddered and nodded, still holding Claire in a death grip. “Young Jamie said that he was looking for you. Why else would he come than to take ye back?”

Claire pushed William’s face into her neck. “We don’t know why he’s here, love,” she said softly, pressing a kiss to the crown of his head. “But I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying here with you, and Brianna, and your father.” Jamie gently – but firmly – squeezed his son and wife closer.

“But is he staying for good?”

Claire turned her face to meet Jamie’s gaze, raising one eyebrow in question. “We don’t know,” Jamie said quietly. “And dinna ask him. That’s for me and yer Mam to do, aye?”

William nodded. Claire felt his breathing steady, but he didn’t move – just wanting to be held.

After a few moments he raised his head to meet their eyes directly. “I think he likes Brianna,” he said quietly.

Jamie closed his eyes and sighed. “Did she tell ye that?”

His son shrugged. “No. But I could tell.”

“How could you tell?” Claire asked softly. The fingers of her left hand slid along Jamie’s back, tracing his scars with her thumb.

William pursed his lips, considering. “Because he was looking at her like how Da looks at you sometimes, Mama. Like he’s found the one thing in the world that makes him happy.”


	51. Chapter 51

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](https://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/164748138367/shifted-part-7-chapter-8)

**Part 7 - The Visitor  
**

**Lallybroch, Autumn 1762**

 

Jenny had set Roger to work, gathering eggs and feeding the sheep along with Young Jamie. Claire was grateful she didn’t have to face him as soon as she came downstairs for breakfast – she wanted to speak with Brianna first. William’s question – together with his unexpected need for physical comfort – had shaken her. She didn’t want Brianna to feel the same way – and she certainly wanted to learn more about her daughter’s feelings for Roger.

Claire slowly stirred her parritch, watching the apple chunks almost melt into the steaming oats. She listened absently to Jamie and Ian’s conversation about the mare that was about to foal, and kept one eye on Brianna, quietly finishing her breakfast across the table. Jamie’s right hand lay on her thigh, thumb softly gliding back and forth, while he finished his own parritch with his left hand.

When Brianna stood to take her empty bowl to the kitchen, Claire squeezed Jamie’s hand and followed her – grasping at the opportunity to speak with her daughter alone. Right outside the kitchen, she lay a hand gently on Brianna’s shoulder – which was difficult, considering the girl was already taller than she was.

“What’s the rush? Did you not finish your lessons again in time for school?”

Brianna sighed, settling against the whitewashed wall. “I did, but - it doesna matter, Mama. I’ll be done soon anyway – no need for schooling after this term is up.”

“Brianna.” Claire used her best _Mama_ voice to draw her daughter’s eyes upwards. She waited until Brianna’s blue eyes met hers. “What have I told you about your education? About how important it is?”

“I understand, Mama. But what does it matter, anyway? You know this is my last term. There’s no more schooling after this.”

“Says who?” Claire rested an arm gently on Brianna’s elbow. “Remember when we talked with your Da about the _Universite_ in Paris?”

“Aye. But will they truly take me, Mama? A girl from a Scottish farm? I’ve never been to a grand city like Paris. I canna speak much French, and I dinna ken what to study.” She licked her lips. “And I dinna want to be so far from you, and Da, and William.”

Gently Claire gathered her daughter into her embrace. Brianna hugged her mother tightly and sighed deeply.

“If it’s what you want, love, we’ll make it work. We’ll find a way.”

Brianna nodded into the curve of Claire’s neck, just happy to be held by her.

“Mama?” she asked softly after a long moment.

“Yes?”

“What do ye think about Roger?”

Ah. Claire drew back and raised one eyebrow. “He seemed pretty smitten with you last night,” she said matter-of-factly. “And I wasn’t the only person to notice that you stared right back at him.”

Brianna blushed. “He’s from your own time, then?”

Claire nodded. “He is. And I did know him, when he was a lad. He surprised me yesterday.”

“Aye, I could see that. Ye were a bit quieter than usual last night at supper.” Brianna paused. “Does he intend to stay?”

Claire sighed. “I have no idea. Your father and I want to find out.” She cocked her head, inquisitive. “Would you want him to stay?”

Brianna licked her lips. “I dinna ken, Mama. He’s so different. And so – ” she hesitated, face flushed.

“So – what?” Claire encouraged.

Brianna smiled nervously. “Well, he’s so _handsome_ , Mama! He has the most beautiful eyes!” Mortified, she covered her mouth with one hand.

Claire smiled, so happy for her daughter. “There’s nothing wrong with admiring a man in that way. I still feel that way whenever I look at your father.”

Brianna set her shoulders. “ _A Dhia_ , Mama. Dinna talk to me of that just now. Everyone kens what you and Da were up to when ye took your wee trip together.”

Claire laughed. “Your man should make you happy, Brianna. And make you feel for the rest of your life like you’re sixteen again.”

Brianna’s fair brow rose. “But I _am_ sixteen, Mama.”

Claire nudged her daughter closer to the kitchen. “So remember this feeling. Because if you don’t have feeling like this whenever your man looks at you – he’s not worth your while.”


	52. Chapter 52

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [origially posted on tumblr](https://gotham-ruaidh.tumblr.com/post/165007931578/shifted-part-7-chapter-9)

**Part 7 - The Visitor  
**

**Lallybroch, Autumn 1762**

* * *

 

 

Roger had helped out with a fair number of chores while he’d stayed with the family in the village, but that was nothing compared to how much work was required to maintain a farm of Lallybroch’s size.

Woken at dawn by Young Jamie, Roger had followed the laird as he carried out his morning chores, trying desperately to keep up – and asking questions the whole while. Young Jamie had been very patient with him, though he clearly hadn’t understood why Roger seemed to be learning all these things for the first time.

“Were ye truly raised in a city, then?” he asked as they closed the sheep pen after feeding Jenny’s prized lambs.

Roger wiped his grubby hands on the seat of his breeches. Not even mid-morning, and he’d already sweat through his soiled shirt. “Aye. I was raised by my mother’s uncle – he was a minister, and his day-to-day life focused on tending his flock, so to speak. We had a housekeeper who took care of most of the chores.”

Young Jamie rolled his shoulders, face softening as his joints loosened. “I canna imagine growing up in a city. I’ve only been to Inverness a few times, and once all the way to Edinburgh with my Da. Too many people for my liking – I missed the openness and wildness of the Highlands.”

Slowly they walked past the sheep pen to the stable – checking on the horses was next on the list.

“Does your family leave the estate often?”

Young Jamie shook his head. “No, and if we do it’s always my Da. Uncle Jamie canna leave Lallybroch, ken? It’s in the terms of his pardon that he canna leave the estate for twenty years. So he minds the farm while Da leaves – though I know it kills Uncle Jamie that he has to stay here.” He paused. “Will ye know about Uncle Jamie’s role in The Rising, then?”

Roger nodded, sighing in relief as they reached the shade of the stables. “A bit. Enough – ” He stopped as his eyes adjusted to the darkness of the stables to see Jamie and Ian standing on either side of a mare. Jamie tiled his head in greeting as his hands swept up the mare’s sides.

“Aye, she’s verra close,” he said to Ian. “Shall we leave one of the lads to stay wi’ her, then?”

Ian scrubbed one hand over the back of his head. “Aye, I suppose so. We canna afford to lose her.” He looked up and smiled at his eldest son. “Should it be you and Fergus then, Jamie? To sit wi’ the mare until it’s her time?”

“Aye, that should do.” Young Jamie glanced over at Roger. “Will ye have other chores for Roger, then? I’ll stay here wi’ her until Fergus comes.”

“He can come wi’ me,” Jamie said quietly, stepping closer to his namesake. “Ian, will ye mind fetching Fergus? I’d like to take a wee walk wi’ Mr. MacKenzie here.” He inclined his head, indicating the open door. “After you,” he said evenly.

Roger had enough sense to not swallow in nervousness, though he clenched one fist behind his back. A bead of sweat trickled down his back as he kept up with Jamie’s long strides. They weren’t heading for the main house, but rather the ancient stone tower perched halfway up the hill to what Young Jamie had told him were the potato fields.

Fraser’s silence unnerved him – and after several minutes, Roger couldn’t bear it.

“What is it ye wish to discuss, then?” He hoped he sounded a lot more confident than he felt.

Fraser paused and turned to face him. “Oh, a good many things. Ye’ve caused quite the stramash within my family since ye arrived.”

They had reached the broch, and now stood in the shade it cast in the late morning sun.

Roger stood up a little straighter. “Jamie didn’t mention anything to me this morning, and it seemed all was right at supper last night.”

Fraser’s eyes narrowed. “I meant my own family, wee Roger. My son. My daughter. My wife, especially. Ye’ve brought some bad news, and caused her to re-live some painful decisions she made almost twenty years ago. She is hurting inside. And because I am her husband, and the Church says we are one flesh – that means it’s me who’s hurting. Because of you.”

Oh, Christ. Had Fraser taken him out to the broch to kill him? If he screamed, could they hear him in the main house?

“So. I’ve two questions for ye, Roger, and I want ye to consider your answers verra carefully. Can ye do that?”

Roger pursed his lips and nodded. What else could he say? What else could he do?

Fraser glanced over his shoulder toward the house, then settled his piercing blue eyes back on Roger’s. “Well then. The first is, how long do ye intend to stay? You can earn your keep here on the estate for as long as ye wish, but times are still lean. We canna give ye charity when we’ve tenants that are struggling.”

Roger nodded. “All right. And the second question?”

Fraser smiled. Coldly. “The second is – what are your intentions toward my daughter?”

Damn. Roger flushed, suddenly tongue-tied. “My intentions?” he croaked.

Fraser glanced down at the back of his weathered, work-scarred hands in a pantomime of casualness. “Anyone wi’ eyes in their heid could see ye swooning over her at supper last night. She’s sixteen, lad, and she kens her own mind weel – but she’s no’ as worldly as I’d like her to be, so we’re talking of sending her away to university. I dinna want anything to get in the way of that. I dinna want ye breaking her heart, especially if ye decide to go back to your own time. Do ye understand?”

Roger nodded. “And when do ye want yer answers, then?” he croaked.

Fraser smirked. “The second answer, now, if ye will. The first – ye can wait a bit, but I want it soon. I dinna like seeing my wife in distress – I dinna like seeing her question her decisions, again. I already lived through that wi’ her, many years ago. I dinna care to do that again.”

Roger sank against the cold, ancient stone of the broch. What were his intentions? He’d barely spoken with the lovely Brianna Fraser – though the few times they’d locked gazes last night seemed to say everything that had been necessary.

Now that he’d seen Claire – and met Jamie – his original “mission” was over. He could stay until the autumn equinox in September, when the passage through the stones would be open again, biding his time learning folk songs and writing down dialects and learning as much about the eighteenth century as he could.

But Brianna Fraser. Would he leave his past – his _future_ , really – behind, in order to stay with her? To build a life with her, in this strange time? Could he leave all that, for the sake of a person he barely knew?

Claire Randall Fraser had.

In a flash, Roger was crushed by all the horror and fear and _guilt_ Claire must have felt when she realized that not only had she fallen through time – but that she had fallen in love. That her life’s true anchor was a person here, in this time – for whom one would gladly sacrifice all the conveniences of modern life.

Was he willing to make that sacrifice, for a woman he barely knew?

Suddenly he realized that Fraser was waiting for an answer. Roger swallowed. “I want to court Brianna. Properly. Will ye allow me to do that?”

Fraser crossed his arms. “Does that mean ye’re intending to stay, then? Ye’re willing to give up your time, all the things you’re used to there?

Roger sighed – belatedly realizing that Fraser had gotten him to answer the first question through his answer to the second question. “I’ve not much to offer her at the moment, but you know that. I promise you that I’ll respect her, and be respectful of her wishes. And I would never, ever ask her to do anything she did not wish to.”

Fraser scuffed the toe of one boot into a tuft of grass, considering. “Aye, well that’s a good thing – considering she’s helped me geld the horses since was nine. One wrong move and she knows exactly how to separate a man from his ballocks. But that would be the verra least of your worries, lad, were you to ever hurt her.”

“I wouldn’t do that. I’d never do that.”

“Aye?” One red brow lifted in question. “Ye barely know her. And ye’re already pledging to protect her, then?”

Roger raised his chin, defiant. “Didn’t you do the same? With Claire?”

Fraser’s eyes narrowed. “Indeed I did.”

“And did you mean it?” Roger fought the urge to fidget as a bead of cold sweat trickled down his spine.

“Yes. I still do.”

“Well then. I won’t break her heart.”

Fraser’s blue eyes fixed his for a long moment.

“Mmphmm. Will ye come help me wi’ the second cellar, then? I’ve been asked to bring some things back to the house.”

Roger paused, then nodded his head slightly. “Lead on.”


	53. Chapter 53

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [originally posted on tumblr](https://imagineclaireandjamie.tumblr.com/post/172240397428/i-was-watching-surrender-last-night-and-i-couldnt)

_**Interlude** _

_**The Milestone  
** _

_**Lallybroch, February 1747** _

–

“What took ye so long?”

Jamie shrugged out of his heavy overcoat and hung it on the peg in the front hallway. Gratefully he took the warm mug of mulled cider from Jenny’s patient hands.

“It took forever to find that one stubborn coo,” he sighed, sipping, loosening the tightness in his throat. “Silly thing was just fine sitting in the hollow and didna want to budge.”

“Mmphmm. Sounds like someone else I know.”

Jamie gave his sister a dirty look, but wisely said nothing, finishing his cider, enjoying the warmth slowly spreading through his frozen limbs.

“Is Claire upstairs already?”

“Aye. Bree was fussy at dinner – gave Claire a devil of a time.”

“That’s only because she missed her Da.” Jamie drained the mug and handed it back to Jenny, already stepping down the hallway and toward the staircase.

“You owe her one!” Jenny shouted behind him.

Jamie rolled his shoulders and rubbed his hands together, taking the steps two at a time, impatient to see his girls. Four steps down the landing – and he gently eased open the bedroom door.

Claire, tired but radiant, sat on the bed, nursing their five-month-old daughter. She looked up as Jamie entered and bolted the door, and raised an eyebrow in a silent question.

“I ken it’s late. But I’m here now.” He kicked off his boots and padded across the room, stockings whispering on the worn wood floorboards. He stretched on the bed, nestling against Claire’s side, resting his head on her shoulder, watching his daughter’s bright blue eyes as she ate.

“Greedy wee fiend,” he remarked after a long while.

“Of course she settles down once you’re here,” Claire sighed, shifting a bit as Jamie wrapped one arm around her lower back, bringing his other hand to cup Brianna’s impossibly tiny head in his palm. “She fussed all afternoon. Wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t stay still. Cried if I left her.”

“I’m sorry I wasna here.” His thumb stroked Brianna’s red fuzz. “I wouldna have left ye alone, ye ken that, only – ”

“Oh, I don’t blame you,” she interrupted. “The ground is too frozen for Ian to manage on his leg, and Murtagh and Fergus won’t be back at least until tomorrow. Of course you had to see to it.”

“Still – ye havena had enough time to yerself, since the lass was born. Ye need space.”

Brianna pulled away, and Claire effortlessly shifted her to the other side. “It’s all right – truly. I mean that. You know it always slows down during the winter – not nearly as many patients to see. Being with her – spending time with her – it’s the most important thing.”

Jamie kissed her shoulder. “It is. That’s why – weel. It may sound a bit daft, but I’m afraid if I’m no’ wi’ her, then somehow I’ll miss something.”

“Nonsense. We’ll have a lifetime of memories with her.”

He sat up a bit straighter, then – still carefully cradling Brianna’s head – and with his free hand, tilted Claire’s chin, meeting her lips for a long kiss.

“I’m so verra grateful that I will, _mo nighean donn_ ,” he breathed against her mouth. “To be wi’ ye – to have her – to have our life… _Christ_ , it’s worth every damn year of the pardon.”

Brianna chose that moment to stop eating, and Claire deftly handed her to Jamie to be burped as she re-tied the front laces of her shift. Jamie found one of the seemingly dozens of cloths they used to burp her, and kissed his daughter’s wee forehead before settling her against his shoulder, gently tapping her back.

After a few moments it was all done, and he gently lay Brianna in the center of the bed. Claire had left the bed and rummaged through their bureau, quickly returning with the whisky decanter and two glasses.

“I thought ye said ye couldna drink while ye nurse the lass?”

“She won’t eat again tonight,” Claire explained as she handed him his glass, undid the stopper, and poured him a glass. “I’ve a bit left over, but that’s yours if you want it.”

His eyes bugged a bit, but he said nothing, watching her pour her own glass. She set the decanter on the bedside table and sat beside him on the bed, one eye on Brianna – happily waving her limbs at the ceiling.

“To our daughters,” he said softly, clinking his glass against hers.

Claire’s chin quivered just a bit, but she smiled so broadly, and sipped her whisky.

For a very long moment they just looked at each other. Silently his free hand found hers. So happy to be here, in this moment – and also considering, even for a fleeting moment, what could have been…

A soft rustle at the center of the bed – and then Brianna cooed.

In unison, her parents shifted their gaze, to see –

“Oh, darling! You turned over all by yourself!”

Claire handed her whisky to Jamie, scooping up their smiling daughter, peppering her ruddy cheeks with tiny kisses.

“Did she?” His face split in a stupid grin. “Is that good?”

“It’s very good. She’s met another of her milestones.” Claire brought Bree to her shoulder, tucking the blanket closer around her middle. “Of course, this means that we need to construct pillow forts to keep her in place – if we’re not careful, she’ll roll right off the bed.”

Jamie set the two glasses on the floor beside the bed. “I suppose that means she’ll be chasing her cousins around the house before we know it.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Claire paused, thinking. “As much as I want her to grow up – I want her to be like this forever. I don’t care how silly that sounds.”

“It isna silly at all.” Now he wrapped his arms around them both, kissing Bree’s ears. “This is the life we never thought we would have. Of course ye want to enjoy every moment of it.”

“I do, Jamie. I hope you know that.”

Bree bounced against Claire’s shoulder. She smiled. Jamie’s heart burst.

“I do, my own. I do.”


End file.
